Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY, TRADE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

North-East Scotland

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what steps he has taken during the last 12 months to attract new industries to the North-East of Scotland, particularly to the City of Aberdeen; and what have been the results.

The Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Edward Heath): I am continuing to make full use of my powers under the Local Employment Acts to encourage further industrial development in the development districts of North-East Scotland, including Aberdeen. In the past twelve months offers of assistance under the Acts have amounted to over £32,500. In addition, 8 I.D.C.s have been issued in the same period for this area, embracing 170,000 square feet and estimated to provide nearly 300 jobs.

Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that that vague and indeterminate answer is on the same lines as the promises made by his colleagues during the last twelve years, most of which have not been implemented, to bring industry to North-East Scotland? Will he mend his ways and do something concrete and constructive for North-East Scotland?

Mr. Heath: The information that assistance has amounted to £32,500, with eight I.D.C.s for 170,000 square feet and 300 jobs, is very specific and, I hope, will be satisfactory to the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Ressle Price Maintenance

2. Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he has completed his study of resale price maintenance; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heath: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) on 28th November.

Mr. Hughes: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government, powerful numerically but not constructtively or intellectually, with all the aids of science at their disposal, have failed to devise plans which would solve this problem in the interests of (a) the workers and (b) the housewives and families?

Mr. Heath: I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that my Department is hoping to find a solution of a constructive nature on a sound intellectual basis.

Mr. Oram: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is becoming an increasingly urgent matter and that public opinion is getting quite worked up about it—more worked up than he appears to be? Does he realise that the obverse of the incomes policy the Government claim to be pursuing is a price policy? Is not an essential element of a price policy the abolition of individual resale price maintenance in the interests of the consumers?

Mr. Heath: I fully appreciate the urgency and difficulty of the subject, but to appreciate a thing fully one does not necessarily have to be worked up about it. I shall make a statement as soon as I can.

Mr. More: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that, before any Government plan is produced on this subject, he will have consultations with representatives of the small traders who might be adversely affected by any change in the law?

Mr. Heath: There have been studies and full consultations over considerable periods with, I think, everybody concerned.

North-East

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when he will implement the Government's plan for the North-East.

Mr. Heath: The plan is being implemented.

Mr. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is one practical and precise task that he can carry out for the North-East—encourage the Post Office to transfer the headquarters of the Post Office Savings Bank to the North-East in general and Sunderland in particular?

Mr. Heath: I am well aware that my hon. Friend would favour that.

16. Mr. Milne: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will place in the Library copies of the evidence given to the Lord President of the Council in his survey of the North-East, and a list of the bodies he had discussions with.

Mr. Heath: No, Sir.

Mr. Milne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a considerable amount of valuable information, and, indeed, valuable advice, was given to the Lord President of the Council in his researches into the North-East? This is something which would help not only the North-East but the Board of Trade itself if it were to tackle this growing problem of unemployment, and in fact may be of great assistance to some of the right hon. Gentleman's friends who are questioning him on unemployment and who are now discovering that Tory freedom does not work.

Mr. Heath: The information collected by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council was available to his colleagues in Her Majesty's Government and to their Departments. I am sure that my right hon. Friend would have been inhibited in collecting this information to the best advantage if those whom he had been consulting from a wide field had understood that it was all to be published.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he will

publish the financial figures of the additional expenditure on services such as housing, education, and roads, in excess of normal investment, for the year ending 5th April, 1964, arising out of the Hailsham Report.

Mr. Heath: No figure exists for "normal" investment in the North-East for the year ending 5th April, 1964. The figure proportionate to the population of the area is approximately £68 million, whereas we have provided for about £80 million in the White Paper proposals.

Dame Irene Ward: May I ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that I get tired of all this talk in generalities? I should like to be able to pinpoint where and in what areas of the North-East Coast this additional amount of money is being spent. Will my right hon. Friend please refrain from continually talking in generalities and give me the details so that I can see for myself what is happening with this very valuable contribution to the North-East?

Mr. Heath: I do not regard the difference between £68 million and £80 million as a generality. If my hon. Friend wants specific details, when the money has been spent by local authorities and the central authority and accounted for at the end of the financial year, she will be able to have specific details.

Uruguay (Flag Discrimination)

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what representations he has received from the steel industry about the policy of the Uruguayan Government in applying a policy of flag discrimination to the detriment of British shipping and trading interests; and what action he proposes to take in view of this damaging precedent.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edward du Cann): A steel firm and its shipping agents have drawnmy attention to the difficulties they have experienced as a result of Uruguayan flag discrimination. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary explained on 28th November in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot) the representations which


we are making to the Uruguayan Government about their shipping policies.

Mr. Williams: While I welcome the limited nature of that answer, would my hon. Friend accept that this is one of a series of incidents in the extension of flags of discrimination which militates against the interests of British shipping and its ability to earn currency of vital importance for the survival of this nation? Will he undertake a more aggressive policy in the promotion of the interests of British shipping, in particular in relation to present developments in the United States of America?

Mr. du Cann: We attach great importance to our shipping interests and we propose to make our attitude towards this question quite clear at the current; G.A.T.T. meeting.

West Country

Mr. P. Browne: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Envelopment when he intends to visit the West Country to study the problems of unemployment in that area.

Mr. Heath: I expect to visit the South West on 2nd and 3rd of January.

Mr. Browne: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the pleasure given us by the news that he is to visit us so soon after taking up his appointment? May I hope that he will visit my constituency where we have a development district with three times the national average of unemployment? Will he please come down by car and then join us in our battle with the Minister of Transport to see that we have better roads to the South-West?

Mr. Heath: I will let my hon. Friend and other hon. Members concerned see the programme as soon as it arranged. I will certainly undertake to travel part of the way by road, but I hope that I do not also have to battle against the weather.

Mr. Thorpe: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that he will try to visit all the areas which are scheduled as being in need of special assistance under the Local Employment Act, in particular that area of North

Devon, whore the unemployment rate is five times that prevailing nationally?

Mr. Heath: What is most important is that I should have the opportunity of meeting all those concerned with these problems. We will arrange the programme with that in view. I will certainly visit all the areas I can.

Several Hon.Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that we cannot go all round areas now.

Distribution of Industry

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he will now lake into account the local level of earnings as well as local unemployment, before deciding whether to encourage or discourage new light industries in a district.

Mr. du Cann: My right hon. Friend's powers to influence the location of industry derive from the Local Employment Acts. In exercising these powers, he does no: regard the level of earnings as a relevant criterion.

Mr. Digby: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the standard of living is very relevant and that it is often a good deal lower than in some of the areas getting extensive financial help from the Government?

Mr. du Cann: I know that my right hon. Friend is very well aware of my hon. Friend's feelings on this subject, with particular reference to the future of market towns. The points which he and others have brought to my right hon. Friend's attention are being considered.

Sir J. Maitland: Is my hon. Friend aware that in many small market towns unemployment is exported and that it is not noted that the towns are doing very badly and that many are beginning to die on: heir feet? Will the Government take particular note of this important topic and deal with it before it is too late?

Mr. du Cann: Yes, Sir. My hon. Friend raises a very important question, and this is one of the points which was mentioned in the memorandum given


to my right hon. Friend by the deputation from the South-West, and it is certainly under consideration.

Trade Agreements (Shipping)

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in negotiating future trade agreements and commercial treaties, he will include a clause guaranteeing free competition in shipping.

Mr. du Cann: Her Majesty's Government's policy is to encourage free competition in international shipping. Provision for this is made in commercial treaties and trade agreements whenever the opportunity occurs.

Mr. Digby: Will my hon. Friend lose no opportunity, because the policy of sweet reasonableness in shipping has not paid very well? Surely the time has come to use all the weapons at our command in this connection.

Mr. du Cann: Certainly there are difficulties. Our general aim is very clearly to work for satisfactory non-discriminatory shipping provisions.

Mr. G. R. Howard: Can my hon. Friend say whether Her Majesty's Government have any ideas—

Hon. Members: No.

Hon. Members: Speak for yourselves.

Mr. Howard: —about such irksome restrictions being imposed on liners like the "United States" when they come to this country as are imposed, or proposed to be imposed, by the United States of America?

Mr. du Cann: I think that that is properly a question for the Minister of Transport, but I will certainly see that my hon. Friend's observations are brought to his attention.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my hon. Friend aware that sweet reasonableness seems to be making matters worse and not better? Can he find an answer to that?

Mr. du Cann: One of the problems is that so many nations these days have new fleets, but certainly my right hon. Friend and the Minister of Transport together keep a close watch on these matters and endeavour to take such action as is open to us.

Cattle Exports (Italy and Spain)

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development how many cattle were exported for slaughter to Italy and Spain, respectively, in 1962, and to the latest convenient date in 1963.

Mr. du Cann: There were no United Kingdom exports to Italy in 1962. In the first ten months of 1963 a total of 540 live cattle, other than for breeding, were exported. Of these 396 were exported from Northern Ireland. None of the remaining 144 cattle was exported for immediate slaughter. There were no exports to Spain in the periods concerned.

Mr. Johnson: Is it necessary to obtain licences from my hon. Friend's Department before animals are exported for slaughter, or otherwise, and what conditions govern the granting of those licences?

Mr. du Cann: Licences are issued—except in the case of exports from Northern Ireland, which is a separate matter dealt with by the Government of Northern Ireland—on the recommendations of the Ministry of Agriculture. Export licensing control is imposed upon live cattle at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, which requires specific assurances from European countries before allowing the export of cattle for slaughter. The conditions are very clear and cover feeding and travel arrangements and other important matters. I am entirely satisfied that these important conditions are observed.

Advance Factories

Mr. Milne: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will introduce legislation to amend the Local Employment Act to enable grants to be paid to local authorities who are building their own advance factories in order to combat unemployment.

Mr. Heath: No, Sir. Under the Act grants are payable only to persons providing continuing employment in development districts, and I do not think it would be right to extend this to local authorities providing employment for workers involved in the construction


of the factories. Grants are, however, available to industrialists who acquire factories built by local authorities in advance of demand.

Mr. Milne: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that does not go far enough and that we are concerned not merely with the labour involved in the construction of factories but with the number of jobs which those factories will provide? Is he not aware that it would be a great incentive and encouragement to local authorities building their own advance factories to have assistance of this description? As his Department is constantly pressing for local initiative and local enterprise, when it is shown why cannot it be backed up?

Mr. Heath: What is important is that the advantages go to the firm coming into the factory and providing continuing employment, for which the right hon. Gentleman rightly asks.

Mr. P. Browne: What my right hon. Friend says is not exactly correct. Is it not true that if a local authority builds a factory, neither the authority nor the person going to occupy it can get a grant unless at some stage the future occupier puts in one brick; in other words, circumvents the law in this way?

Mr. Heath: As I said, if the future occupier is to acquire it, he gets all the grants.

Mr. Owen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those areas which are excluded from the plan for the North East are finding their enterprise severely handicapped when it comes to attracting essential industry to their areas? As they are prepared not only to make excellent sites available but to set about the provision of advance factories, ought not something be done to encourage their efforts?

Mr. Heath: Industrialists continue to receive the inducements given under earlier legislation. The hon. Member's other question is a repetition of the same point. It is a question of where the advantages go, where the inducements go, when the factory is built.

Miss Herbison: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when the first

advance factory in Shotts will be completed; and how soon it will be occupied.

Mr. du Cann: The first advance factory in Shotts is now ready for occupation, but I cannot say when a tenant will be found.

Miss Heroison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is over two years since the Government decided to build this advance factory? Surely during that time they could have found a tenant for it? Can the Minister tell me what efforts are being made to find such a tenant? Secondly, s the Minister aware that under the Beeching proposals the railway station at Shotts is to be closed? Will the Minister make strong representations to the Minister of Transport that any effort made by the Board of Trade to attract industry to that area will be nullified by the Beeching proposal to close the railway station?

Mr. du Cann: We are grateful to the hon. Lady for the views she has expressed on this occasion and those expressed on my right hon. Friend on other occasions. We shall certainly bear them in mind. I assure the hon. Lady that we are as anxious as she is to find a suitable tenant for the factory, and we shall continue to bring the factory to the notice of tenants who might be suitable. However, I would remind the hon. Lady that there are two factories in Shotts and that the second one will be ready at the end of this month. A firm application has been received and it will provide 150 jobs.

Mr. Manuel: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when construction of the advance factory at Kilwinning Industrial Estate is to commence; and what is the estimated date of completion.

Mr. Heath: Construction of the advance factory at Kilwinning has begun. It should be completed during the summer of 1964.

Mr. Manuel: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is over a year since the building of this factory was authorised? All that has happened since, under the aegis of the right hon. Gentleman's Department, is the building of one wee road, which I saw when I visited it at the weekend.

Mr. Heath: The announcement was made by my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Labour on 8th April, 1963. Technical difficulties were encountered over the site of the factory. The contractor went on to the site on 3rd December.

The Hartlepools

Commander Kerans: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development how many applications to establish industry in The Hartlepools have been made since 1st August.

Mr. Heath: Two firms have applied to set up in The Hartlepools since 1st August. One of them was recently given an industrial development certificate; the other applied a few days ago for a factory to be built for them and this is under examination.

Commander Kerans: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that Answer. Will he do what he can to speed up applications when they go through B.O.T.A.C?

Mr. Heath: Yes, Sir. I will certainly do that.

Commander Kerans: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what further measures he intends to take to reduce the 7·9 per cent. figure of unemployment in The Hartlepools.

Mr. Heath: I am continuing to use my full powers under the Local Employment Acts to encourage increased industrial development in The Hartlepools.

Commander Kerans: Will not my right hon. Friend agree that to put the Tees-side industrial estate on the south bank does not help my constituency, certainly not in the immediate future, for it means that workers have to travel considerable distances to the new area of employment? Will he do something to establish industry on the north bank of the Tees?

Mr. Heath: Obviously, the judgment about the new estate was made on considerations of the growth area as a whole. At the same time, important activities have been taking place in my hon. Friend's constituency. As he knows, two factories will soon be completed by

my Department for tenants who are already known. In addition, since August some 18 firms have been taken to see buildings and sites in The Hartlepools and we hope that these may result in more employment for my hon. Friend's constituents. We still await the decisions of a number of them.

Depopulation Areas

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what proposals he has for bringing new industries to those areas suffering from continuing depopulation which are not scheduled for assistance under the Local Employment Act.

Mr. Heath: My first obligation must continue to be to the development districts. But I am always prepared to consider applications for suitable industrial development in areas suffering from depopulation.

Mr. Willis: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these areas are really exporting unemployment, and are declining? I have in mind the Prime Minister's constituency of West Perth shire and others in Scotland. Is it not time that the Government undertook to do something special for these areas, in the same way as they do for areas of heavy unemployment?

Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is asking me to change priorities. I do not think I can do that. I do not think that it would be the general wish to do that. We must concentrate our resourcew on the areas wlere there is the highest unemployment.

Loor-to-door Salesmen

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what repl} he has sent to the communication from the hon.0Member for Swindon, writing as Khairman of the Advertising Inquyry Council, regerding misrepresentation by salesmen posing as Commonwealth students engaged in tour contests; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heath: I have told the hon. Member that in this, as in other fields, I welcome publicity on forms of doorstep selling whicl may not be in |he best interests of the consumer.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the ryght hon. Gentleman consider making inquiries into the activities of Readers Service Ltd. of Prulential House, Wellesley Road, Croydon, who employ alleged Commonwealth students0on this basis but refuse to allow them to revea| the identity on the firm for whom they work? Will the right hon. Gentleman in general accelera|e the activities of the Consumez Council in thiw field?

Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is speelily taking advantage of drawing attention publicly to one case.(We have had a number of cases of this type of agtivity brought |o our attention at the Board of Trade. The Consumer Council has chosen this as one of the three subjects into which it will inquire.

Mr. MacDermot: Has the question been considered of prosecuting these peotle for obtaininw goods by false4pretences?

Mr. Heath: We have examined this question. We have no evidence tha| it is an offense against the Board of Trade legislation, and ajy other sort of prosecution would depend on the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr. Hipkins: asked the Sekretary of State(for Industry, Tzade and Regional Development if he will make rexresentations to the Consumer Coancil concerning(the increasing nuisance being caused to householders by door-to-door salesmen pksing as students, soliciting subscriptions to magazines; what other steps he is taking in this regard; and if he will make a stitement.

Mr. Heath: The Consumer Council announced in Septembeb that doorstep celling was one kf the three subjects they had chosen for immediate action. I am(awaiting their riews.

Mr. hopkins: Will not mi right hon. Friind agree that this is a reprehensible practice?(Can he say when he expects to hear from the Conkumer Council?

Mr. Heath: They have given me no indication of the date. I do nkt think that my hon. Friend meant that doorstep selling is reprehensible, but ojly some of the practices mentioned this afternokn.

Film Industry

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secbetary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development (1) if he will now initiate discussions with representatives of British film producers concerning the present difficulties in film production:

(2) in view of the danoer of unemployment in the film industry with cojsequent loss of production and exports, if he will propose to the managers of the major circuit{ emergency steps to speed up thi release of Bri|ish films in 1924.

Mr. Heath: I have already had preliminary meetijgs with deputations from the Feheration of Film Unions and from the Federation of British Film Makers. I told them that I shall shortly receive the advice of the Cinematograph Films Council which is presently considering the difficulties of the film industry and that I shall then decide what action it may be justifiable for me to take.

Mr. Swingler: Could not the right hon. Gentleman speed up this matter? Did he not hear from the independent producers that a certain aspect of this matter is really urgent, namely, that film prod action in the independent sphere may collapse unless something can be done to organise a quicker release of British fillms next year? That can be dealt with separately from the considerations of the Films Council on the question of a third circuit and reducing the dominance of the A.B.C. and Rank Organisations. Could not the right hon. Gentleman separately deal with the question of early releases next year of films already produced by independent producers and make an immediate approach to the circuits on this matter?

Mr. Heath: I am aware of the difficulties of this situation. I am looking at some of the points raised by the deputations, but both deputations were of the view that I ought to receive the advice of the Films Council, on which many of their members sit, before I finally decide on action.

Mr. Rankin: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he is meeting the Films Council? Is it at an early date?

Mr. Heath: If I remember correctly the Films Council is having its adjourned meeting in about a week or ten days and it hopes to let me have its advice as soon as possible thereafter.

Yorkshire

Mr. A. Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if, in view of the need to avoid restrictions on the development of the county's potential, particularly in the fields of civil aviation and the development of growth industries, he will classify the county of Yorkshire as a region for the purposes of his Department.

Mr. Heath: The classification proposed by the hon. Member does not appear to be an improvement on the existing arrangements for the purposes he has in mind.

Mr. Roberts: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has given consideration to this? May I ask whether he believes in sound town planning development? It would bring about better co-ordination between the three Ridings.

Mr. Heath: I appreciate the importance of the point raised by the hon. Gentleman. The whole of the North Riding comes under the North-East Plan, and part of the North Riding is in the growth zone. Therefore, from his own point of view, I do not think that the suggestion put forward by the hon. Gentleman is really satisfactory.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that a great deal of research into the social and economic problems of Yorkshire is now taking place? It would help this research if the Minister would geographically delineate the area for which he is going to issue a report.

Mr. Heath: I shall look into the point about social and economic research in the county. As I am going to spend the next 48 hours there, I shall have the opportunity of consulting them.

Racial Discrimination

Mr. Abse: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether, in view of the termination of employment of British citizens of the Jewish faith upon the

demand of Arab States, he will seek to amend the Insurance Act, 1958, to provide that no insurance company may conduct insurance business in this country if it practises religious or racial discrimination against its employees.

Mr. du Cann: No, Sir.

Mr. Abse: In view of the statements that have recently been issued both by the Arab Boycott Committee and by the representatives of the Arab countries, is it not at any rate desirable—since there is a clear intention to continue to interfere in the organisation of British firms, including the contracts of service of those firms—that a clear and unequivocal statement should be made by the Minister advising those firms that under no circumstances should they reply to any questionnaires or other similar probes which may be sent to them by the Arab Boycott Committee or any other Arab organisation?

Mr. du Cann: I am ready to make Her Majesty's Government's position entirely clear, as it was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs just two days ago, when he said:
Her Majesty's Government strongly disapprove of pressure from any source on British firms to discriminate between British subjects on any grounds."—[Official Report, 10th December, 1963; Vol. 686, c. 224.]
Following from that, if firms which appear to be affected or concerned about the boycott are ready to consult us we shall certainly be ready to give them any help and support that we can.

Mr. Callaghan: Will the hon. Member say why he thinks that legislation would not help? Is it not fairly obvious that boards which are as pusillanimous as that of the Norwich Union would be very much strengthened in their reaction to foreign interference if they were able to say that they would be acting illegally if they acted in such a manner as this? Therefore, is there not a case for reconsidering proposals for legislation to deal with racial or religious discrimination in this country, so making it possible for such resistance to be effective?

Mr. du Cann: The point is that legislation is an extremely difficult and complicated matter. I am sure that the House in general is satisfied that the


majority of companies behave with great sense in this matter. So far as there are any exceptions—and I have no particular case in mind—I am glad to see the way in which public opinion, both in this House and outside, has built up so strongly.

Mr. Callaghan: I recognise that legislation in this matter is difficult, but we are asking that the matter should be considered and not just turned down with a monosyllabic "No, Sir". Is there not something here worth looking at in order to see whether the position could not be remedied by legislation despite the difficulties?

Mr. du Cann: We are always ready to consider suggestions, especially when they are put so reasonably by the hon. Member. We are not clear that such legislation would be enforceable. There are tremendous difficulties about it. But, in view of what the hon. Member has said, we shall be willing to consider the matter again, alhough I can give no guarantee that such legislation is practicable.

North British Locomotive Company

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development (1) what reasons were given by the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee when recommending that financial assistance should be given to the North British Locomotive Company;

(2) whether he was consulted by the North British Locomotive Company, to which public money has been loaned and whose chairman is a Government-appointed director, regarding its liquidation; what representation she has received from shareholders and others on this matter; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. du Cann: The Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee did not have to give reasons for their decisions. Before recommending financial assistance, however, they had, under statute, to be satisfied that the undertaking, although unable at the relevant time to obtain, the capital required on the requisite terms, would ultimately be able to be carried on successfully without further assistance. The Board of Trade

had advance information of the company's intention to go into liquidation, but the decision was solely that of the company. I have had representations from some of the shareholders, to whom I have explained that the Government were not at any time or in any way responsible for the manner in which the company's affairs were conducted.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Did the Government try to assist the company to get orders for locomotives? Did not the Government-appointed director reconstitute the board and reinforce the view of the Government, in reports to shareholders, that there were not unfavourable prospects for this company? Now that the Government have advised its liquidation, are they entirely not disposed to see whether they can help the modest shareholders who put their money into this company? We understand that the Government want their money back, and that the General Electric Company wants its money back, but will not the Government consider the case of the shareholders? Will not the Minister receive a small deputation on this matter?

Mr. du Cann: A serious attempt was made to put this company on its feet which, had it succeeded, would have been of great benefit to all. The unhappy fact is that it did not succeed. The Government simply cannot underwrite every company to which they give financial assistance. On the other hand, I would be very ready to receive the deputation to which my hon. Friend has referred.

Mr. Woodburn: Is not the Minister aware that two sets of shareholders are concerned—those who began to speculate when they saw that the Government were supporting the company, and who naturally have lost in their gamble, and the original shareholders, who have lost considerably?

Mr. dp Cann: I still think that the basic point is the tragedy that the efforts to make this company work did not succeed.

U.S.S.R. Petrol

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he will now permit the import of petrol from the Union


of Soviet Socialist Republics to prevent a rise of prices.

Mr. du Cann: No, Sir.

Mr. Parker: Is it not about time that this ban ended, so that we could both increase our own exports to Russia and keep down the price of petrol here?

Mr. du Cann: In the world as a whole there is a surplus of oil. The point for the United Kingdom is to find new outlets for it. As for the availability of petrol from the Soviet Union, of the exports so far made to non-Soviet bloc countries only a tiny fraction consists of petrol.

Factory, Cumnock

29. Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development when the factory at Cumnock, Ayrshire, is to be completed; what work will be done there; and how many people will be employed.

Mr. Heath: The advance factory at Cumnock should be available for occupation by the end of December. As a tenant has not yet been found I cannot say what work will be done there. On average a factory of this size provides about sixty jobs.

Mr. Hughes: What is the use of a factory without a tenant?

Mr. Heath: The hon. Member and all his hon. Friends are always advising us to provide the factories first so that the tenants can then come. In fact, the Board of Trade Office for Scotland has brought the factory to the attention of 35 firms, 10 of whom have visited the site so far. I now hope that one of them will occupy it.

Public Investment (Sunderland)

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development whether he proposes to give the same immediate priority to in vestment in public services in Sunderland and The Hartlepools as in the conurbations of Tyneside and Tees-side and in the Darlington-Aycliffe area.

Mr. Heath: The Hartlepools are regarded as part of the Tees-side conurba-

tion and will therefore qualify for the priority for public investment which we envisage for that area. Sunderland is not regarded as part of Tyneside; while it is within the growth zone and will receive public investment as such, it will not qualify for priority as do the Tyneside, Tees-side and Darlington-Aycliffe areas.

Mr. Jay: As the right hon. Gentleman has now made it clear that Sunderland is not to get this priority, how can he possibly justify leaving out of this priority a city the size of Sunderland, which has an extremely high unemployment percentage?

Mr. Heath: Sunderland will receive priority as part of a growth zone, as the right hon. Gentleman will see if he looks at the plans for the road construction which affects Sunderland and which are very important to it. But in the first phase, Tees-side, Tyneside and Aycliffe will receive priority in public investment.

Mr. Jay: That means that Sunderland will not receive the same priority as Tees-side and Tyneside.

Mr. Heath: It will receive a degree of priority as a growth zone. The emphasis will be placed first on the three areas that I have mentioned.

Falmouth and Penryn

Mr. Hayman: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what special steps he is taking to bring new industries to Falmouth and Penryn in the constituency of Falmouth and Camborne.

Mr. du Cann: I shall continue to make full use of the powers provided by the Local Employment Acts to encourage industrial development in the Falmouth Development District.

Mr. Hayman: Does not the Minister think that the time has come for more action than that? The Government have been promising this action for many years, but only one small new industry has come to the area despite their efforts. Is the Minister aware that the present unemployment rate is over 12 per cent. and that it seems that it may become almost endemic, or even worse. Will the Minister take special steps to


see that something radical is done to improve the situation there?

Mr. du Cann: I certainly realise the situation, and I have the figures in front of me. I also know the hon. Member's long-standing and deeply-felt concern about the matter. Substantial benefits are available under the Acts, and the position is not quite so black as one might suppose from an examination of the figures to which the hon. Member has referred, for there are about 1,000 jobs in prospect in the neighbouring area, with which he is equally familiar.

Mr. Hayman: May I ask the Minister to remember that those jobs are to be available in the Camborne-Redruth area over a number of years, and that the industrial site at Camborne-Redruth is 13 or 14 miles away, and is likely to be of little help to the unemployed people of Falmouth?

Mr. du Cann: I do not entirely accept the hon. Member's last point. It is well within travelling distance and an indication that progress is being made.

Steel Products (Common Market Tariffs)

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he is aware of the proposal of the European Coaland Steel Community to raise the Common Market tariff on British and other steel products; and what representations he has made against this.

Mr. Heath: Yes, Sir. We have already expressed our concern at possible measures of this kind. The High Authority are now undertaking formal consultations with the United Kingdom and other principal suppliers.

Mr. Jay: Is it not rather unsatisfactory that when a major British industry like steel does compete successfully and sell at a lower price within the Common Market group we immediately have new barriers erected or threatened against us? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that his efforts will produce some results?

Mr. Heath: It is not entirely just to say that immediately we find barriers have been put up against us. We must

all recognise the difficulties existing in the steel markets of Europe at present. The British steel industry appreciate that. We have expressed very forcibly our opposition to an increase in tariffs. We had first consultations with the High Authority on 10th December, and we shall resume them on 17th December.

Norwich and Norfolk

Mr. Paton: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if, in view of the abnormal volume of unemployment in Norwich and Norfolk, he will take steps to provide more jobs in the area.

Mr. Heath: I would not be justified in taking any special steps to attract new industry to Norwich or to Norfolk, where unemployment is only a little higher than the national average.

Mr. Paton: Is the Minister aware that this is another of those areas where there are quite special difficulties with regard to employment Is he aware that when men and women become unemployed in Norfolk and round Norwich it is almost impossible to find any other kind of suitable job at all? Will he consider getting new industries into the area to provide a variety of jobs, and will he use his powers to encourage that?

Mr. Heath: At the moment there are a considerable number of jobs in prospect. There are 900 at Norwich and 2,000 for the rest of the county. As the hon. Gentleman will know, The ford and King's Lynn have agreements to take London overspill, together with industry.

Mr. Hilton: Would the Minister look at the position of men in the rural areas and in the small market towns, where very often the only form of employment is agricultural and the number of workers is decreasing, which is causing a problem?

Mr. Heath: My hon. Friend has given that assurance.

Wales

Lady Megan Lloyd George: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development what action he is taking to bring new industries into Wales.

Mr. Heath: I shall continue to make all possible use of my powers under the Local Employment Acts to encourage industrial development in those development districts in Wales in which the full powers of the Acts apply. As the noble Lady is aware, my Department is building advance factories in Portmadoc, Bethesda and Milford Haven.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: As the unemployment figures for Wales are still almost double the national average and in certain areas the percentages are as high as 10 per cent. and 11 per cent., will the Secretary of State give an assurance that the development plan for Wales will be expedited?

Mr. Heath: I do not know whether I misheard the noble Lady, but the figure for Wales as a whole is not, of course, twice the national average.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: I said "almost double".

Mr. Heath: In November, the unemployment rate was 3 per cent. compared with 2 per cent. in Great Britain. This does not alter the fact that in some development districts there are pockets of high unemployment, and we shall do everything possible to get industry to them.

Mr. Jay: While the right hon. Gentleman is pursuing his policy of growth zones, how can he justify having no growth zone anywhere in Wales, and when does he propose to establish one?

Mr. Heath: We discussed this in the Welsh Grand Committee yesterday morning. Studies are being made in Wales in five different groups. For South Wales there has been a great accession of industry and other areas we shall deal with under the Local Employment Acts.

Mr. Callaghan: Has there been any change since yesterday morning? Has the Minister seen the reports that as a result of criticism about the delay in publishing his plans for 1965–66 they are to be advanced by 12 months? Is this so, or are we still to wait till 1965 for them?

Mr. Heath: So far as I know, there has been no change since yesterday.

Export Credits

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development if he will now extend credits beyond five years to the state trading countries, in cases of large capital projects and shipbuilding.

Mr. du Cann: The Export Credits Guarantee Department already has authority to support credit beyond five years where appropriate for such business.

Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman has failed to answer sufficiently the part of the question dealing with shipbuilding. Is not he aware that the £75 million scheme, or £80 million scheme, for the ship owners is widely regarded as an attempt to rationalise the shipbuilding industry within the relatively short period of two years? Does he realise that that will hit Scotland very hard because jobs are few there, and average unemployment is over 100,000? Is he aware that the growth plan in central Scotland will not be speeded up sufficiently to overcome the decay in the shipbuilding industry?

Mr. du Cann: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but if he will read his Question again and then read the Answer which I have given he will see that I have done my best to answer his Question exactly. The point about the shipbuilding credit scheme is entirely different and does not come under the auspices of E.C.G.D. business. I am satisfied that the general terms and conditions under which credit and national guarantees can be given are of the greatest assistance to the industry he mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT POLICY (STATEMENTS)

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Prime Minister to what extent it is his intention to make statements of Government policy at regular Press conferences.

The Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): I intend that statements of Government policy should continue to be made in Parliament when Parliament is sitting.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I appreciate that answer, Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the rights of elected Members of Parliament is the right to interrogate Ministers and that it is a longstanding Parliamentary practice that all Government statements should be made in this House? Do I understand that it is the intention of the Prime Minister to continue that practice?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the Leader of the Opposition has Press conferences, that Ministers have Press conferences, that Members of Parliament could have Press conferences, but that it seems that only the Prime Minister cannot have Press conferences? Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that if during a Parliamentary Recess he felt it incumbent to have a Press conference to express Government policy, he should not be put off by the criticism of hon. Members opposite?

The Prime Minister: I did say in reply to the Question from the hon. Member "when Parliament is sitting" statements would be made here. Whether or not I hold Press conferences at any time, I should do nothing to impair the primacy of this House.

Mr. Callaghan: I am sure that everyone will be glad to hear the last remarks of the Prime Minister. Will he also take into account the fact that there is sometimes a thin dividing line between Government policy and party statement? In view of the difficulty of judging that, is he aware that it would probably be wise to err on the side of not too many conferences? If he does give them, is he aware that it will be expected that the Opposition should have the same right to comment as the Prime Minister has to make his statement?

The Prime Minister: I think I can choose the number of conferences I have and the hon. Gentleman can choose what comments he makes on them.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS PROCEEDINGS (TELEVISION)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Prime Minister whether he will move to appoint a Select Committee to consider the

implications of televising some of the proceedings of the House of Commons and the conducting of a closed circuit experiment.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the replies which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Sir N. Hulbert) on 19th November and 5th December.

Mr. Donnelly: They were not very good answers. Is the Prime Minister aware that this Parliament is almost the last among the leading Parliaments of the Western world which takes no note whatever of these mass media? How long does he think this can go on and this House retain a hold on the imagination of the nation?

The Prime Minister: The view I have taken is that it is a matter largely for the House, as I have said before. But I think that the House ought to decide on the principle before beginning to experiment with the practice.

Sir T. Moore: Does by right hon. Friend appreciate—I am sure that he does—that if Parliamentary proceedings were televised it might well induce some hon. Members to seek to catch Mr. Speaker's eye for publicity purposes rather than to elucidate information from Ministers? Does not he think that this would tend to diminish the respect in which Parliament is still held by the public?

The Prime Minister: I have not been here long and I must be careful, but there are some aspects of Parliamentary life which I should not mind being on television.

Mr. Grimond: As the Prime Minister is rightly anxious to have the opinion of the House on this matter, and as there are difficulties, particularly about Committees and how broadcasts would be edited, would he consider allowing us to have a debate on the matter?

The Prime Minister: I think that would be a matter for the usual channels.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the Prime Minister aware that, with due respect to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the usual channels on my side are somewhat conservative? Would he consider on occasion establishing a new channel?

The Prime Minister: I do not think I can give the hon. Member much hope, because a lot more people will be going Conservative in future.

Oral Answers to Questions — MIXED-MANNED NUCLEAR FORCE

Mr. Rankin: asked the Prime Minister if he has noted the decision reached by the Parliamentary Assembly of Western European Union on the matter of the mixed-manned nuclear force; and whether he will now amend his policy on this subject, to take account of this new fact.

The Prime Minister: I presume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to Recommendation No. 98, on the State of European Security, which was adopted by the Assembly of Western European Union on 4th December. It contains no reference to the mixed-manned force; and the second part of the Question does not therefore arise.

Mr. Rankin: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that at the recent meeting of Western European Union the idea of a multilateral force was opposed by Representatives who came from both sides of this House? In seeking to find a policy, has he taken that into consideration? In trying to find a policy to guide himself and the Government, will he remember also that, although the Battle of Trafalgar was won by a mixed-manned force, military and naval matters have changed a great deal since?

The Prime Minister: This matter was certainly discussed, and I gather that the decision not to include in the Recommendation any reference to a mixed-manned force was because they wanted the Recommendation to be non-controversial and there would have been controversy if it had been included.

Mr. Ridley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) has obviously not read the Amendment nor the Report to which it was tabled, and that those of us who were there voted for the Amendment because it contained no mention of a mixed-manned force?

Mr. Gordon Walker: Is the Prime Minister aware that the second part of

the Question, which he said would not arise, is still rather important, namely, whether he will amend policy on this matter? Can he tell us briefly whether he yet has a policy about the mixed-manned force?

The Prime Minister: I think the right hon. Gentleman knows the position perfectly well. This matter is being examined—[Hon. Members: "Oh."]

Mr. Gordon Walker: I know the position.

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman knows the answer—

Mr. Gordon Walker: I know the position.

The Prime Minister: The answer is the position. It is being discussed in Washington and Paris, and we want to see what comes out of those discussions before we make up our minds.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Mr. Driberg: asked the Prime Minister whether he has now formally renewed his proposal that Soviet, British, and United States scientists should meet to consider various aspects of nuclear disarmament; and what has been the result.

The Prime Minister: We have many times pressed the Russians to agree to talks between Soviet, British and American scientists on the problem of detecting and identifying underground nuclear explosions. The last occasion when we put this suggestion forward was at the beginning of the negotiations at Moscow in July. We shall try again to get the Russians to agree to such scientific talks when the Geneva Disarmament Conference resumes in January.

Mr. Driberg: Did the right hon. Gentleman notice this morning's news that the deposit of strontium 90 is the highest yet recorded in Britain, although it is still below what is called the safety level? Will he agree that this is the sort of subject, in addition to those he has mentioned, which could be usefully included in the agenda for such a meeting?

The Prime Minister: We are talking about underground tests now in which the question of fall-out does not arise, but I should welcome most comprehensive talks with Russian scientists on this matter.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Do we understand that the Prime Minister would be agreeable to talks between scientists about the wider aspects of nuclear disarmament with a view to the preparation of a plan for the abolition of nuclear weapons?

The Prime Minister: We have never laid down any limits to the talks we have suggested between Russian scientists and our own, but I think it would be profitable to begin with this aspect so that we may get a completely comprehensive nuclear test ban instead of only for tests in the atmosphere.

Mr. Lubbock: Can the Prime Minister say why the Government have consistently refused to publish the criteria on which the number of inspections demanded is based? Will he instruct the scientists to prepare for publication a document setting out the basis of the number of inspections and the other criteria involved?

The Prime Minister: I shall consider that suggestion and see what has already been made public. This Question relates to talks with Russian scientists, and it is these which I am anxious to get going.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND AND LORD ADVOCATE

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Prime Minister in view of the fact that there has been no Solicitor-General for Scotland in the House for over three and a half years and no Lord Advocate for over a year, and in view of the size of the current programme of Scottish legislation, if he will advise the appointment of an hon. Member, with legal qualifications, to one of those positions.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Sir D. Robertson: Is it not the case that this. House has been deprived for years of either or both Law Officers and that this morning the Scottish Grand Committee was in considerable difficulty

because there was no one present to advise hon. Members on both sides of the Committee on a complicated legal Measure? Is it not the case that even if someone becomes available, the candidate at Dumfries, we shall still be short of another Law Officer?

The Prime Minister: I hope that next week part of the troubles of my hon. Friend—[Hon. Members: "He is not the Prime Minister's hon. Friend."]—will be resolved.

Mr. Steele: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Scottish Grand Committee has been getting on very well without a Law Officer and that the experience the Committee has had with previous Law Officers provided from among hon. Members opposite tends only to add to the confusion?

The Prime Minister: I do not think I can accept that.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTTISH TRADES UNION CONGRESS (CONFERENCE)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister why he refused an invitation from the Scottish Trades Union Congress to attend a conference on unemployment in Scotland held on Saturday, 7th December.

The Prime Minister: I did not receive an invitation to this conference.

Mr. Hamilton: That shows the wisdom of the Scottish T.U.C. Does the right hon. Gentleman nevertheless understand that the Scottish T.U.C. wanted all Scottish Members of Parliament there to understand and explain to them the unemployment figures in Scotland? Does he understand that he cannot afford to neglect these educational opportunities?

The Prime Minister: I cannot go to a conference when I am not asked to do so.

The Earl of Dalkeith: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that deeds are better than words and that while the Opposition frequently engages in vague unconstructive talk about unemployment my hon. and right hon. Friends are getting on with the job?

Mr. H. Wilson: Is it a measure of the extent to which the Prime Minister's hon. and right hon. Friends have been getting on with this job that unemployment in Scotland is now so much higher than it was in 1959?

The Prime Minister: Everyone has recognised that there have been stubborn pockets of unemployment in Scotland and other areas but that we are taking drastic measures—[Hon. Members: "Where?"]—which we hope will lead to the unemployment being reduced.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY AND TRADE (RACIAL DISCRIMINATION)

Mr. Millan: asked the Prime Minister what action he is taking to co-ordinate the work of Ministers to ensure that public authorities and nationalised industries do not place insurance business with any insurance company which practises discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, or religion.

The Prime Minister: It is not the practice of Government Departments to insure; the Government have no power to direct local authorities in this matter. This would not be an appropriate subject for Ministerial directions where the nationalised industries are concerned.

Mr. Millan: Is the Prime Minister aware that, while we welcome statements that have so far been made by the Government about the Norwich Union affair, there is still need for the Government both to give clearer guidance to firms on whom pressure may be put and to express their displeasure at those firms which have given in to pressure? On the latter point, would it not be worth reminding those firms that most of them get a great deal of business from Government Departments and public authorities?

The Prime Minister: On the first part of the question, the whole country must be aware of the attitude of the Government to this matter. On the second part, if any firm wants assistance from the Government, the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade are at its disposal.

Mr. Gordon Walker: asked the Prime Minister what steps he has taken

to co-ordinate the actions of the necessary Departments of State to counter attempts by Governments of Arab countries to influence the composition of boards of commercial undertakings in this country.

The Prime Minister: There is close and constant contact between all the Departments of State concerned on the implications in this country of the Arab boycott of Israel.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Whereas we all welcome, as no doubt the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the recent developments and the Government's statement on this matter, will he not agree that it is still necessary that the Government, through their various Departments, should do more than simply be ready to assist concerns which ask for advice on this matter and that they should make much more clear that it is against their will and desire that questionaires and so on should be answered at all?

The Prime Minister: I am not quite sure that I follow what the right hon. Member is after in the latter part of that question. It is for firms to follow their own policy, but, if they are in difficulty, both the Foreign Office and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade are ready to help them.

Mr. Gordon Walker: While appreciating the right of firms to decide their own policy, do not firms normally take into account the clear policies of the Government in matters of this kind? Should it not be the policy of the Government to say that when foreign countries send in questionnaires to be answered about trading practices and so on with a view to influencing the internal affairs of those companies, they should not answer such questionnaires?

The Prime Minister: I should like to consider that part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. I am glad that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are beginning to understand the dangers involved in economic boycotts and sanctions.

Mr. W. Yates: Is the Prime Minister aware that the services offered and the advice tendered by all the commercial


secretaries in embassies in the Middle East show that they are fully aware of this problem and that every business exporter who consults them is told not to pay any attention to them? Is he also aware that until this case nobody has paid the slightest attention to any pieces of paper coming from anybody in the boycott?

Mr. H. Wilson: When the right hon. Gentleman threw out his gratuitous remark about economic sanctions following a situation in which both Front Benches have been agreed on this Arab-Jewish question, will he say to what he was referring? Was he referring to South Africa where we, as a party, have opposed an economic boycott but have strongly pressed for an arms embargo which his Government refused but for which his Government have now voted in the United Nations? Is that what the right hon. Gentleman was saying, or did he have something else in mind?

The Prime Minister: I think that I was just giving a little friendly warning to the right hon. Gentleman. I would refer him to some of the speeches of his hon. Friends.

Mr. Wilson: If the Prime Minister wants to widen this question, will he be a little more specific and not try to score cheap points of that kind?—[Interruption.] If he is talking about other kinds of boycotts, will he tell us why his Government for all these years have applied these very strict embargo conditions on trade with Eastern Europe when he is now posing as the saviour of Anglo-Soviet agreement?

The Prime Minister: Certainly. I am perfectly prepared to answer the question. We do not apply an economic boycott at all. All we do is, with our allies, to have a military list of goods which we do not supply.

Oral Answers to Questions — FEDERATION OF SOUTH ARABIA (DETAINED PERSONS)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what action Her Majesty's Government intend to take in connection with the exile yesterday of Abdullah al Asnag and other Adenese leaders to the Island of Kamaran.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies (Mr. Nigel Fisher): The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. Those detained are all being kept inside the Federation of South Arabia. Their detention is a matter for the Federal Government.

Mr. Thomson: I think the Undersecretary for correcting the information that has been conveyed in the Press today, but is he aware that while we all deplore Tuesday's bomb outrage, and hope that the reward that has been offered results in the perpetrators being brought to justice, there is bound to be concern about these apparently large-scale reprisals against the political leaders of the People's Socialist Party in Aden?
Is there any evidence of their complicity in this outrage? Will charges be preferred against them and, if so, will Her Majesty's Government ensure that the normal processes of justice, to which we are bound by the Declaration of Human Rights, will be applied in the courts?

Mr. Fisher: These people are being detained because the High Commissioner and the Federal authorities consider that this is a necessary step in the immediate interests of public security. There is some reason to suppose—and I must tell the House this—that the bomb incident at Aden Airport on Tuesday was, in fact, part of an organised conspiracy rather than the work of an isolated individual. This is, of course, a provisional assessment. It cannot yet be absolutely confirmed, because police investigations are still continuing. I cannot say what charges, if any, will be brought until those investigations are completed.

Mr. Thomson: Since the Under-Secretary's comments are bound to bring back recollections of what happened in Nyasaland, can he give the House an assurance that these allegations of conspiracy will be brought out into the open in the court of law, or that the people against whom the allegations have been made will be released?

Mr. Fisher: I shall certainly not take refuge in any innuendo. I am now inquiring into this incident, which


happened very recently, and I do not yet have full information at my disposal. I am simply keeping the House informed as we go along and I will make a further statement whenever hon. Members desire one.

Mr. Kershaw: Are not the Government of Aden justified in taking every precaution for security in a situation where so many nationals of a State which is by no means friendly are often excited by that State to overthrow British power in Aden?

Mr. Fisher: Although the measures being taken may, admittedly, appear somewhat drastic to us in London, I am sure that hon. Members appreciate that they are being taken by the Federal authorities in consultation with the High Commissioner in the light of their local knowledge of present conditions in Aden and their responsibility for ensuring public security. We must, at any rate for the time being, leave it to the judgment and assessment of the chaps on the spot, because I do not have sufficient information yet to justify any intervention by Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Grimond: While accepting that security must have high priority in the mind of the Government of Aden, do I understand from the Minister's words that he is giving an undertaking that before the House rises for the Christmas Recess a further statement will be made on the situation?

Mr. Fisher: I said that it was my desire to keep the House informed at every stage and that if hon. Members wished me to make a further statement when I have more information I would do so.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. H. Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 16TH DECEMBER—Debate on Security and on the Denning Report,

which will arise on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Motion on the General Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order.

TUESDAY, 17TH DECEMBER—Motion on the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Dissolution) Order.

Motion on the Building Societies (Special Advances) Order.

WEDNESDAY, 18TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Rating (Interim Relief) Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution.

Motion on the District Probate Registries Order.

THURSDAY, 19TH DECEMBER—Supply [4th Allotted Day]: Committee stage of the winter Supplementary Estimates, which subject to the wishes of the House, it is hoped to obtain formally to allow debate on an Opposition Motion on the National Health Service.

FRIDAY, 20TH DECEMBER—The House, if it has been so resolved, will rise for the Christmas Adjournment until Tuesday, 14th January.

Mr. Wilson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether, in the arrangements for next week, time has been provided for a clear statement from the Government Front Bench on the question of who is to lead our delegation to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva?
Is he aware that the statement made by the Prime Minister the other day, the only statement that we have on the record of the House—and we applauded it when he made it and support it—has apparently been denied—[Interruption.] We want the right answer this time—by the Foreign Office, by an anonymous spokesman? [Hon. Members: "Get on with the question."] Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that whatever his hon. Friends may say, there are certain standards that have to be maintained in this House and that we intend to maintain them whether as the Opposition or the Government?
If I may continue with the question which was interrupted, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the House will regard any statement made by the Prime Minister as binding upon


the Government until it is corrected in this House? Therefore, will he tell us whether the statement which was made is to remain on the record as correct—as we hope—or whether there is to be an official retraction by the Government next week?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman asked me whether I had arranged for a statement to be made during business next week. If he will put down a Question my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will answer it.

Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that this is quite contrary to the precedent of the House and that if we have a statement from any Minister—and goodness knows, we can all, on both sides of the House, make mistakes, and I recognise that—and a slip is made by any right hon. or hon. Gentleman there is an accepted procedure for correcting it?
Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware, therefore, that if the Prime Minister stands by the record we are very happy with that? There should not be any secret denials by any Government Department. If the right hon. Gentleman made a mistake, which the whole House recognises is always possible in these circumstances, the right procedure for him is to make a personal statement to put it right, and the whole House will accept that.

Mr. Lloyd: I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is anxious to deal with this matter as quickly as possible. Whether it is in order for him to make a statement today is not for me to say.

Mr. Speaker: The practice is that personal statements must be first submitted to the Chair.

Mr. W. Yates: Has my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House taken note of what was said by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies concerning the state of affairs in Aden, where paramount British interests are involved? Will he consider arranging either for another statement to be made, or for a debate to be held, because we could not let it be thought that the action of the present Government in Aden with regard to the P.S.P. is designed to break the power of the

P.S.P. in Aden at this time? Will my right hon. and learned Friend therefore let us have a debate on the matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I cannot say that I will arrange for a debate on this matter in Government time during next week, but I note what my hon. Friend has said about a statement.

Miss Herbison: Since the Minister of Pensions informed the House that legislation will be required before widows can benefit from the provisions announced earlier by the Prime Minister, may I ask whether the Leader of the House will tell us when we can expect this legislation to be brought forward?

Mr. Lloyd: As quickly as possible.

Mr. Gardner: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the growing appreciation in the House for brief speeches? Will he give the most careful thought to the Motion on the Order Paper today, which has the support of more than 100 Members on both sides of the House, that one hour be set aside at the discretion of the Chair for brief speeches during major debates?

[That this House would welcome the implementation of the unanimous recommendation of the Report from the Select Committee on Procedure 1959 that an hour be set aside, at the discretion of the Chair, for brief speeches on the occasions of major debates.]

Will my right hon. and hon. Friend allow this good intention to be tested as soon as possible by a debate on the Motion?

Mr. Lloyd: I have noticed the Motion and also the considerable measure of support which it has received. I think that this is a matter for the House as a whole to consider, but I am studying ways in which this suggestion could be further considered.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman seen on the Order Paper a Motion relating to the advertising of cigarettes on television and through other media, which is supported by 100 Members of all parties who are concerned about the dangers to health of cigarette smoking and the fact that so much cigarette advertising is aimed at young people?

[That this House, gravely concerned at the expenditure of large sums of money on the advertising of cigarettes, and at the impact of such advertising on young people, in view of the proven dangers to health, including cancer, caused by cigarette smoking, urges Her Majesty's Government to stop all cigarette advertising on commercial television as a first step towards restricting such advertising on all media.]

If we cannot have a debate on the Motion next week, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consult the Minister of Health, the Minister of Education and the Minister for Science and give an opportunity for debate early in the new year?

Mr. Lloyd: I have noticed the Motion and the measure of support which it has received. I agree with the hon. Member that it is a candidate for debate either in Government time or at other opportunities available to the House.

Sir P. Agnew: Has my right hon. and learned Friend's attention been drawn to an announcement in this week's all-party Whip about the changes which are to be made in the writing paper supplied to hon. Members? Will he give an assurance that this change, including particularly the one which will drastically reduce the size of the paper allowed for their use, will not be proceeded with until the House has had an opportunity of expressing an opinion either next week, or later, or through the usual channels?

Mr. Lloyd: I am aware of the point that my hon. Friend has made. I think that in the first instance it is a matter for the Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports. I understand that that Committee is meeting this afternoon to reconsider this question. When I have had the result of that reconsideration I will bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. C. Johnson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will remember that a fortnight ago I asked him about the publication of the Government's White Paper on compensation to victims of crimes of violence. Is he now able to say when we may expect the White Paper?

Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir, I am unable to add to my previous answer.

Mr. More: Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time before the Christmas Recess to enable the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man) to apologise to the House for the misleading intervention he made in the Press about the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on Tuesday?

Mr. Speaker: That goes beyond the proper compass of a business question.

Mr. Crossman: On a point of order. Where a personal imputation is made against an hon. Member, has he no right to reply?

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry if I was slow in stopping the question. I have been at it now for quite a while. I have ruled it out of order and I hope that it can stop there.

Mr. Warbey: May I ask the Leader of the House when we shall have a debate on foreign affairs, to give the House the opportunity to discuss commitments on Central Europe entered into by the new Foreign Secretary during his recent visit to Bonn?

Mr. Lloyd: Not next week, but I will bear in mind what the hon. Member has said, without accepting his imputation.

Mr. Reynolds: May I ask whether I am right in assuming that the debate on the security aspects of the Denning Report is to be on a Motion for the Adjournment? Are we to treat a report by a Lord Justice of Appeal, who was asked by the Government to go seriously into matters of this nature, just by having a debate on the Adjournment? Can not we have a Motion, or at least take note that the Report is accepted by the House at the request of the Government?

Mr. Lloyd: This matter has been discussed through the usual channels and I thought that it was the wish of the House that the debate should run fairly wide and not be restricted to the Denning Report only.
As for comments made last week about the possibility of reference to legislation during a debate on the Adjournment, if hon. Members will look at Standing Order No. 16 they will see that it is unlikely that proposals which


would involve the amendment of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, would be out of order.

Mr. Wigg: On this same point, surely it is the Government's duty to seek the opinion of the House on the matter. Such a course will narrow debate quite unnecessarily. I should have thought that the Report itself could be approved by the House and that the Government would welcome that. After all, the Report is critical of the Government in some respects and, therefore, the Government ought to make their own position clear not only to the House of Commons, but to the country as a whole. To seek to avoid a decision on it is surely a clear case of dodging the column.

Mr. Lloyd: This matter has been discussed. I have considered it and in my view this course is in the interests of the whole House.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House have been very accommodating on this? [Hon. Members: "Oh."] Yes; after all, a big song and dance was made about the establishment of the Denning inquiry last summer and we would naturally expect that after that the Government would accept the Report. Surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman would satisfy all hon. Members by making quite clear that the Government spokesman in the debate next Monday, whether on the Adjournment—which we are prepared to accept—or on any other basis, will say that the Government accept the Denning Report.

Mr. Lloyd: In answer to a question on business, I would prefer not to anticipate what my right hon. Friend might say.

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. To clear this matter out of the way, would you be good enough to say whether you would allow reference to the amendment of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, because unless hon. Members can refer to that Act, and argue for or against its amendment, we shall be going off at half-cock.

Mr. Speaker: I cannot rule in advance of the particular reference, because

under the terms of the Standing Order the degree of reference would be material.

Mr. Snow: With reference to next Thursday's proposed debate on the National Health Service, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that it will be in order to refer to the question of remuneration of family practitioners? If so, will the Government make the present situation clear with special reference to the taxation problems of the family doctor?

Mr. Lloyd: The debate will be on an Opposition Motion, which I have not yet seen, and, in any case, I do not think that it would be for me to say what would be in order on the Motion.

Mr. Cole: May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether, early in the new year, he would find an opportunity to debate the parts and the details of the Buchanan Report?

Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly bear that suggestion in mind.

Miss Herbison: Surely, when the Prime Minister makes promises from that Box, the fulfilment of which require legislation, the Leader of the House ought to know definitely when that legislation will be brought forward. Were the promises this week only another piece of heartless propaganda on the part of the Government, with the excuse to follow that they cannot get the legislation before the election?

Mr. Lloyd: I am sure that the hon. Lady knows that, however good the merit of the proposals may be, there are such people as Parliamentary draftsmen and that they must put the thing into legislative form. I cannot say exactly how long it will take.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the House aware that my many friends in the City and on the Stock Exchange are worried about the daily statements which indicate that the Government are moving too far Left and appropriating the programme of the Labour Party? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give them an assurance that he will not make a statement next week announcing the nationalisation of iron and steel before Christmas?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that the hon. Gentleman must sort out with his very many friends in the City the mutual problems that they have.

Mr. Lubbock: There is a Motion on the Order Paper today calling for the appointment of a Select Committee on the Canberra replacement.

[That this House expresses grave concern at the failure of Her Majesty's Government to keep the House informed of the difficulties experienced in the development of the Canberra replacement and calls therefore for the appointment of a Select Committee to examine the planning, development and cost of this aircraft, with the power to call for persons, papers and records.]

In view of the widespread concern at the mounting cost of this project, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make time available for an early debate on this Motion?

Mr. Lloyd: I will take that suggestion into account.

Mr. Mitchison: With regard to the legislation which the Prime Minister has promised about National Insurance matters, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman undertake that Parliament will not be dissolved until that legislation has been brought in and passed?

Mr. Lloyd: That is not a promise that I can give; and as I have said, it is the intention of the Government to proceed with this as quickly as possible. As soon as the proposals have been put into legislative form they will be brought before the House.

Mr. Reynolds: Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that the proposal of the Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports that, in future, Members should be supplied only with the paper-bound volumes of the annual index to the Official Report—the volume which is used more than any other—will not be put into operation before it has been discussed by the House?

Mr. Lloyd: That is not a matter for me, but I will consider the suggestion.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Mr. Harry Randall: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a personal statement.
During the Second Reading debate on the Post Office (Borrowing Powers) Bill on Friday, 6th December, I referred inadvertently to Mr. Harold Johnson of 63 Oxford Street. I now find that, in fact, the correct address is 62 Oxford Street. I regret any inconvenience caused to the tenants at No. 63 Oxford Street.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.56 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
During the Supply debate on agriculture last May I announced to the House the measures that the Government intended to take to secure greater stability in our market for cereals and meat. These proposals arose from the conviction that, while the existing system of support for agriculture based on the 1947 and 1957 Acts must and should be maintained, we needed to buttress the system against the pressures which have been put upon it.
It is, I think, common ground on both sides of the House—although I am not so sure about the Liberal Party—that our system of support is the one which best suits our national circumstances. But it was devised at a time of comparative shortage of food in the world, and it was always envisaged that it could be, and might have to be, adapted as conditions changed; and surely what we have seen in recent years has shown the need for modification in our arrangements. The anxiety which has been widely felt in this House and also in the country has arisen on two counts, both flowing from the complete change round in the balance of supply and demand for food in the Western world.
In the first place, with our open door policy for food imports, our market has tended to act as a magnet for surpluses. The effect has been to disrupt the market and consequently to widen the gap between the guaranteed price and the price which farmers can get for their produce on the market, thus causing a notable rise in the charge to the Exchequer, which is the basis of the system.
Secondly, there has been the anxiety, well expressed in the Report of the Estimates Committee of 1961, over the impossibility of accurately forecasting the Exchequer liability with such a com-

pletely open-ended system. While I do not think that we can aspire to achieve complete accuracy—for nature itself will take a hand here—the steps that we are taking to adapt our support system will prevent the sort of runaway bill which we have had, and not been able to estimate, in recent years, notably, the House will remember, in 1961.
The Government have also been considering their policy for horticulture, and in the statement which I made a few weeks ago I set out their plans for this important industry, too. The purpose of the Bill is to give power, where it does not already exist, to implement these policies for agriculture and for horticulture.
First, agriculture. As the House knows, discussions are proceeding both with the lenders of the industry and with our principal overseas suppliers on the regulation of imports of cereals and meat, coupled with the extension of the standard quantity concept at home so as to maintain a reasonable balance between home production and imports. As regards home production, the powers to introduce standard quantity arrangements already exist in the Acts of 1947 and 1957 and such arrangements have been introduced for several commodities.
On the imports side, the arrangements which we are discussing with our overseas suppliers of meat are on the basis of the quantities coming on to this market. As the House knows, we have already concluded a multilateral arrangement about bacon on this basis and it is generally agreed that, because of the nature of the product and the structure of the trade, built up over a long time, the right way to deal with meat imports is on a quantity basis. The arrangements which we have in mind, therefore, do not come within the ambit of discussion on the Bill itself which deals with the introduction of minimum import prices.
This is the basis of our policy for cereals—the observance of minimum prices for imports coming on to our market. By Clause 1, power is given to prescribe minimum import prices and to impose levies, if necessary, to enforce such prices. Although these powers are required immediately for cereals, they have been drawn, as the House will have


noted, as general enabling powers which could be applied by Order not only to cereals, but to other agricultural and horticultural commodities. We have thought it right to seek these wider powers from the House so that they would be available should it be necessary in the future to apply minimum import price arrangements outside the cereals sector.
There is much discussion at present about international commodity agreements, and it is possible that such agreements may in time be concluded on a number of commodities. As a result of such developments, or because of changing circumstances in our own market, we may wish to be able to apply minimum import prices in order to stabilise our market for other commodities. But, as I say, there is at present no intention on the part of the Government to exercise the powers under the Clause other than for cereals and their related products.
Before turning to some more general questions arising out of Clause 1, I should explain briefly how we see these powers being applied to cereals. The Minister would first prescribe by Order the cereals and cereal products on which he wished to exercise the power to apply minimum import prices and levies. Under the Clause, any Order specifying a commodity would require affirmative Resolutions in both Houses of Parliament. There would, therefore, be close parliamentary control over the list of commodities for which minimum import prices and levies could be prescribed. In other words, this is enabling legislation, and we should have to introduce Orders before we could bring in minimum import prices for any particular commodity.
The Minister would then be able to prescribe by Order the levels of minimum import prices applying to any commodities specified. Finally, when it was necessary to enforce minimum import prices on imports, he could make Orders prescribing rates of levy chargeable on commodities so as to enforce the prescribed minimum import price. That, briefly, is how the powers under Clause 1 would be applied.
Since we are in process of discussing our proposals for cereals with our main

overseas suppliers, I cannot today tell the House precisely what levels of import prices we shall want to prescribe for the different cereals or cereal products.

Mr. Douglas Jay: Will the Minister clarify one point regarding the Orders? Would it be possible for the Government at any time to raise the level of the levy on a commodity without coming to the House and asking for an affirmative Resolution approving an Order? As far as I can see, they would, but is that really so?

Mr. Soames: The House would, rightly, be jealous of its rights in two matters. One is the list of commodities on which it is proposed to have a minimum import price, and the other is the level of the minimum import price. Those are the questions which would come to the House for approval by Resolution.
The amount of the levy might vary not only from day to day, but perhaps even from shipment to shipment. The House will wish to ensure that the minimum import price is adhered to, and it must be an administrative act by the Government to see that it is adhered to and, if supplies come in at below the minimum import price, to ensure that the levy is put on so that the price comes up to the minimum import price.
This must be left for administrative action. It could not wait for the approval of the House. Clearly, that would be quite impossible. What the House will care about, and rightly wish to have a say in, is the level of the minimum import price, because this, of course, affects the price at which the commodity comes on the market.
I was pointing out that I cannot at this time say precisely what will be the level of import prices which we shall want to prescribe for cereals. I assure the House, however, that it is not our intention to apply the arrangements in a way which increases generally the prices for cereals in our market. The minimum import prices are simply intended to put a floor into our market in order to deal with supplies at the unrealistic price levels at which imports have from time to time come in. The deficiency payment system is intended to make up the difference between a


realistic world price and the price guaranteed to our own producers.
If, however, imports are coming in at quite uneconomically low prices, which at times of surplus generally in the Western world is apt to happen from time to time, as we have seen, this undermines our market generally, and the result is to push up the cost to the Exchequer of deficiency payments, and our support system was not designed to deal with this sort of situation.
Our intention, therefore, is not to use the minimum import price arrangements as a means of putting a protective fence against competition by economically priced supplies, nor would this be in the interests of our agriculture generally because of the dependence of livestock producers on imported feeding stuffs.
As an indication of the order of prices which we have in mind, I can remind the House of the minimum price of £20 a ton for barley which some of our overseas suppliers undertook to observe in the summer of 1961 following a time when barley was being imported at prices down to about £15 a ton. Present market prices for imported barley at about £23 a ton are, of course, well above that sort of level, and the whole concept of the minimum import price and levy arrangement is that it would not bite unless the offers on the world market were so low in terms of price as to frustrate our whole system of support for agriculture. It would come in only at those times when there were offers down below the floor, as it were, such as we have known from time to time.

Mr. J. M. L. Prior: Supposing that the world price for barley is, for instance, £16 a ton, and our minimum import price is set at £20 a ton, is it the Government's intention that a levy of £4 a ton would then be put on the import, or is it the intention that importers should sell at £20 a ton, as has happened, of course, with-Russian and French barley in the last year or two?

Mr. Soames: We are not running this as a revenue raising operation. That is not the object of the exercise. The object is to keep the levels on our market at a realistic point. If barley were to arrive at our ports at £15 a ton a levy would be placed on that barley to bring it up to

the minimum import price. My hon. Friend took the example of £20 a ton but we are a very big cereals importing country; we import 8 or 9 million tons of cereals annually and our minimum import prise will undoubtedly have a considerable effect on the steadying-up of world prices generally. Mr. Frederick Peart(Workington): The hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) has asked a very important question. The Minister said that we shall not think in terms of collecting revenue, but some revenue will be collected. I think that the House would like to know who will get it.

Mr. Soames: The object of having a minimum import price is not to obtain revenue for the Exchequer. However, if there is barley coming on to the market and it attracts a levy, revenue will flow there from. But we are not expecting in normal circumstances that there will be offers of cereals to the market at below our minimum import price. This is a net to prevent the import price falling below a realistic point.
I turn now to two point which I know some hon. Members have in mind. The first is the effect of these arrangements on our balance of payments and the second the effect on our cost of living. What I have said about the sort of levels of minimum import prices which we have in mind shows that we are thinking in terms of the lower levels of the range of prices within which the world market for cereals normally fluctuates. We are aiming to cut out the lowest troughs to which cereals prices have from time to time sunk.
How often the minimum import prices would, in practice, operate would depend entirely on the state of the world market. But if prices were depressed generally as a result, for example, of surplus supplies, it is true that our minimum import prices would prevent us from importing at the lowest prices at which cereals might been offer from time to time. It would depend on whether they came on offer from the exporting countries at our minimum or below it. But on the other hand, the greater stability of prices on our market would reduce the cost to the Exchequer by preventing the deficiency payment bill from soaring


upwards, as it has done in the past when low-price imports have undermined our market.
The same point applies to the effect of this on our cost of living. There is, however, another point that I should like to make on this aspect. The great advantage of our present support system is that, as well as safeguarding the well-being of our agricultural community, it enables us as a nation to enjoy cheap food. This support system was developed when foodstuffs were in relatively short supply. What we are doing by introducing the minimum import price arrangements is to take the necessary steps to enable our system to continue to function efficiently in the very different conditions of today when our market is liable from time to time to be subjected to pressures from surpluses being offered at knock-down prices on the world market, often with the aid of heavy subsidies.
Unless we take the necessary steps to buttress our arrangements against these pressures, there is a danger that the rising cost to the Exchequer of our system would compel any Government in power to rethink our whole basic approach to the method of support for agriculture. The only obvious alternative would be to move over to a fully managed market régime as practised in Europe, which would mean the end of our cheap food policy.
The provisions of Clause 1, therefore, far from representing a retreat from a cheap food policy, are designed to remove some of the growing pressures on our present system of support, which we must do if the system, with its advantages of cheap food, is to survive.

Mr. A. E. Oram: Does this not mean that whatever is saved on the deficiency payments, and whatever the taxpayer saves, the house wife will pay?

Mr. Soames: It does not mean that. The effect will be exactly as it is today. What this enables us to do is to ensure that the system can continue without successive Ministers of Agriculture having to come to the House and say, "I thought that the market would be steady. In fact, the world market has collapsed and our bill for

deficiency payments has gone up by £50 million or £100 million." It will preserve a system of great benefit to the country as a whole by enabling it to enjoy the benefits of cheap food compared with any other industrial country.

Mr. Jay: The Minister has not answered the question. He admits that the levy will sometimes bring in revenue which will be paid into the Exchequer. Who pays the levy? Somebody must pay it.

Mr. Soames: If cereals are bought abroad and delivered to a port, the levy is paid on any difference between the price at which it comes into the port and the minimum import price. [Hon. Members: "Who pays it?"] The importer.
I turn to the Bill's horticultural provisions, which are of major importance in helping the industry to reduce its production costs and improve its marketing. Taken together, they can, I believe, be said to represent a new deal for British horticulture and a chance for the industry to make itself as efficient and competitive as any in the world. We are not immediately concerned in the Bill with the future import policy for horticulture, but I want to make it clear that while it is our belief and intention that the measures we are taking will reduce the industry's reliance on tariff protection and that this will be of long-term benefit to the industry and the nation as a whole, there is no question of our operating some cut-and-dried plan in advance for reductions in tariffs. And as I said in my statement to the House recently, there will have to be a period of about four years before any reduction can be considered in the tariff on sensitive items. After this period, reductions can be considered and decided upon if in the circumstances of the time that was judged to be in the national interest. We have said that we will consult the industry, and I am sure that that is right. Such consultation would include consideration of the progress made towards achieving a higher degree of competitive efficiency.
The proposals in the Bill are of four kinds; grants for growers and cooperatives; the improvement of credit facilities; grants for wholesale markets;


and the introduction of compulsory grading. I will say a word about each of them in turn.
First, I deal with grants for growers and co-operatives. What we are seeking to do is to extend to the production side the Horticulture Improvement Scheme which has hitherto been confined to the marketing side of the business. When the Bill is enacted we will be setting out a scheme, as we have done in the past, which will include grant-aid on many items of benefit to the industry on the production side. We are in consultation with the leaders of the industry about what items should be included.
Turning to grants for small production businesses, general help to tide small business over a period of reorganisation will be given up to a maximum of £500 a holding. The business will have to be at least of four "adjusted" acres and with an upper limit of 30 acres all told and not more than 15 "adjusted" acres. This is to enable the smaller man to adapt his system of production perhaps to alter the pattern of his business and to give him a grant over a period of years to help him so to do.
Then there is the grubbing up of orchards, which, hitherto, has been confined to horticultural holdings. There are a number of orchards, often on agricultural rather than horticultural holdings, where nothing has been done. They are apt to breed pests, but the apples may be harvested and put on the market, although they are not in good condition. They tend generally to depress the market when they reach it. The new proposal is an extension of an existing grant, which has been confined to the horticultural industry, to try to get rid of a number of old orchards for the benefit of the industry as a whole.
The next point is the provision of working capital for co-operatives. The idea is to give a grant for a couple of years, until turnover catches up with expenditure, to encourage the setting up of co-operatives. We are at present enabled to give grants for promotional work, but the intention now is to encourage the faster setting up of co-operatives and to offer a sum for working capital for the first two years to enable a co-operative to get under way.
Next, co-operative markets. The existing Act allows grant aid for co-

operative buildings and equipment to store and handle produce. The Bill will allow grant aid to co-operative or groups of co-operatives to build and equip their own markets. We do not expect to see a large number of co-operative markets going up, but two or three are under consideration. The trend towards greater co-operation by growers, including even the big ones, in the marketing of their produce is something that we wish to encourage.
All these items which I have mentioned under the broad heading of grants for growers and co-operatives require more money. Clause 6 of the Bill increases the £8 million provided under the 1960 Act to £24 million, which may be extended to £27 million by order if necessary, over a ten-year period.

Mr. Denys Dullard: My right hon. Friend has referred to grants for production on individual holdings, which are also referred to in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum.

Mr. Soames: Small holdings?

Mr. Bullard: No—production on holdings generally, on the production side. There does not seem to be any reference to this in the Bill, but my right hon. Friend has referred to a list. Where is this in the Bill?

Mr. Soames: It is in Clause 6, which extends the Horticulture Improvement Scheme and the money that is voted for it by Parliament from £8 million to £24 million. The details of what will be allowed in this direction will come into the scheme which will be laid as soon as the Bill is enacted.
To move on to the credit side, under the existing Horticulture Improvement Scheme, even though it was confined only to marketing, growers have found it difficult to raise the other two-thirds capital necessary to take full advantage of it. Clause 8 allows the Government to stand behind the Agricultural Credit Corporation, which, in turn, indemnifies banks against bad debts on loans to growers up to a specific level. We are standing behind the corporation to the tune of £100,000 a year plus any unspent carry-over from year to year of not more than £200,000. This support for


the Corporation will generate many millions of pounds of credit for horticultural growers who, hitherto, have found it difficult to provide collateral security and will, we believe, enable them to take full advantage of the extended grant aid scheme.

Mr. Oram: The Minister has referred, as did the Press release in connection with the Bill, to one organisation, the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Are we to understand that the Clause is intended to benefit only that corporation, or would other suitable credit institutions similarly benefit?

Mr. Soames: There is no reason why this provision should not be applied to other institutions if so required. It will be seen that the Clause does not specify the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I was merely giving it as the example of what we had in mind.
I turn now to wholesale markets. In 1957, the Runciman Committee advised that local authorities should press on with the modernisation of their markets. We are now in 1963 and only two markets have been built since the war, one in Sheffield and the other in Coventry. Experience shows that it is necessary to give some financial incentive to local authorities. Like the Runciman Committee, we believe that it is right that these markets should be local markets, in the control of local authorities and not of a national organisation, because they deal with local problems. The Bill offers a one-third grant to those markets which we wish to see improved—and they will be the bigger markets. When questioned during my recent statement, I said that we were thinking in terms of markets with a throughput of £5 million a year as the test. We think that 15 or 20 markets will come within this provision.
Our object in giving grant over a period of years is, first, to give an incentive to local authorities to rebuild their markets whilst the grant is in operation. Secondly, by the offer of the grant, they will be able thereby to charge rents to stallholders which will be considerably less than they would otherwise have been, if they were having to make their markets pay for their own accounting purposes. This is a twin benefit which

will stem from the Bill. We are allowing £20–£25 million over a 10-year period. This will be a one-third grant, so that it will represent the spending of up to £75 million on markets over the 10-year period if, as we believe it will, advantage is taken by market owners to improve their markets.
Compulsory grading is a new but necessary departure. We are taking power to lay regulations designating grades for certain fresh horticultural crops. For some time, a number of people in the industry have been keen on grading and have wanted it to be introduced. Some have done the grading themselves. It has been disheartening for them because time and again, when putting their produce on the market, ungraded produce has come on to the market and lowered the price and they have not been able to obtain a return for their lay-out on grading.
There has also been considerable opposition to grading within the industry, but I believe that the feeling within the industry has progressed considerably in recent times. As the House will know, we have introduced this policy after having consultations with the leaders of the industry. I believe that the industry is ready and appreciates that the only way to get grading is not by voluntary methods, but by compulsory enforcement. That is what the Bill enables us to do.
Obviously, some commodities lend themselves better than others to grading. The first which we have in mind are apples, pears, tomatoes, cucumbers and, possibly, cauliflowers. It will, however, take time—say, two or three years—to recruit the graders—we have none in this country—and train them. Before enforcement is introduced we may, perhaps, have a trial run so the industry can accustom itself on what is required in the way of grading.
We will go ahead with this as fast as we can. I believe that this will be attractive to the industry in as much as its products will then be graded as well as the produce coming in from overseas, so that they will be in much fairer competition. The housewife will also benefit and will be able to buy home produce knowing that it has been properly graded.

Mr. Anthony Fell: In regard to the imported produce which may be graded, will there be a distinction as to country of origin between British and imported produce?

Mr. Soames: All imported produce is marked as such.

Mr. Fell: But will it be on the labels?

Mr. Soames: It is already on the labels that it is imported produce.

Mr. Norman Cole (Bedfordshire, South): On the same point, are we going to tie up the imported graded produce with the graded produce of this country?

Mr. Soames: The imported produce is already graded. Indeed, the difficulty at the moment is that the imported produce is graded whereas the home produce is not. We now have to set out our own grades so that our home produce can compete with the imported.
We believe that the commercial grower and the horticultural industry as a whole, with its turnover of £160 million a year, have an important contribution to make to the national economy. At the same time, we believe that it would not be realistic, or in the best interests of the industry in present circumstances, where the whole mood of international trade discussion is towards a lowering of trade barriers—a movement which it is very much in our general national interests to encourage to the full—for the industry to have to rely in the years ahead to the extent that it does today merely on tariff protection.
The conception underlying the Bill is to encourage the horticultural industry to improve its competitive position in relation to foreign suppliers. Indeed, our object is to enable the horticultural industry to be as efficient and competitive as possible. I believe we have included in the Bill the essentials which are necessary and right to achieve this object. The opportunities for the industry which will be provided under the Bill have been worked out in the closest co operation with the leaders in the industry, and I would like to say how grateful I am for the support and help which we have had from them in this new policy.
We believe that the skill, knowledge and enterprise which is to be found in the industry will enable it to take the fullest advantage of the opportunities and incentives which will be provided by the Bill and that from it not only growers and merchants, but consumers, and, indeed, the whole country, will benefit. An efficient horticultural industry, with its produce better presented and marketed and distributed more effectively and more rapidly, is not only good business, but is something which will be appreciated by housewives.
The provisions of this Bill, and the very considerable measure of Government financial assistance which they involve will lave far-reaching effects on the horticultural industry. They represent a considerable change in the means to be employed in supporting the industry, just as Clause 1 of the Bill represents a considerable development in the Government's support policy for agriculture. In both cases they represent realistic adaptations to policy to take account of the changing world setting within which our farming and horticultural industries have to work. The Government's basic objectives of securing the well-being of these important industries remain the same. I feel sure that the horticultural provisions will put that industry on a sounder footing for the future. Clause 1 is an essential feature in ensuring the continuation of the support system for agriculture by removing one of the pressures which put it at risk. Together, I believe that they make a highly worthwhile Bill which will commend itself to the House as a whole.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down—I know that he has been very patient—

Mr. Soames: Yes, I thought I had.

Mr. Loughlin: —I wonder whether he will give me some information about Clause 9, which refers to grants to wholesale markets. Some of the major markets are combined markets. They have a throughput of horticultural products and fish products. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether such a market would qualify for the grant?

Mr. Soames: We are thinking only of horticulture in this regard.

4.35 p.m.

Mr, Frederick Peart: The Minister has today brought in a very important Bill. In fact, we are really discussing two Bills. Clause 1 in itself is a major Bill and a major departure from policy. After all, what we are deciding today in the House is as important as the decisions over the controversies on the corn laws many years ago. On both sides of the House we should be aware that in the matter of food policy we are making a major change and, for that reason, should scrutinise carefully what the Government intend to do.
I warn the Minister that he will have to be much more precise on Clause 1 in Committee. His reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) was not very convincing in the sense of the information that he gave to the House. He must know how these levies will work and what administrative machinery will be created. I will merely say that in Committee we shall certainly constructively examine Part I of the Bill in great detail.
Part II of the Bill is concerned with horticulture and we welcome proposals for which we have asked over and over again for the last 10 years. I recollect the many debates we had on the Horticulture Bill and on grading and we are glad that the Government at last are taking responsibility. Obviously, it would have been better if there had been two debates; one on Clause 1, the major policy, and another in a separate Bill on the part dealing with the horticultural industry. I say from this Bench that we will not divide against the Bill, but that we shall critically examine the impact of the Government's proposals not only for agriculture, but on our general food policy.
The Minister should remember that he is Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, so we are not dealing specifically with agricultural policy. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland also appreciates that fact. Scottish Members on the other side of the House do not always accept this. I am never sure what are the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland. He must bear in mind that he has responsibility for food as well as for agriculture.
I accept that we have to balance varying interests. The Minister, quite rightly, has given a survey of the reasons why the Government changed their policy when he announced the new decision in May of this year in our last Supply debate. We must obviously consider the various interests, and the first to which I refer—and I hope that there will be complete agreement on this on both sides of the House—is, once more, the food producer farmer and the farm worker. We are all anxious to work out a policy which will give him a fair return and adequate security.
Secondly, we must also bear in mind the interest of the consumer, which is important. I am glad that that has been stressed today because the effect of Part I of the Bill could be to impose a levy on food imports which, if not properly handled, could cause a rise in food costs and hardship to certain sections of the community.
Thirdly, there is the important factor of Exchequer support. Fourthly, we must remember our obligations to E.F.T.A., and fifthly, our obligations to the Commonwealth. The right hon. Gentleman has recently announced that he is discussing with Australia the whole food policy of the Government, as he has done in relation to meat imports with the Argentine, and also, I understand, with Uruguay. We must keep in mind the interests of the Commonwealth. Finally, we must also bear in mind our obligations to the G.A.T.T. The right hon. Gentleman took part in a May Ministerial Committee of G.A.T.T., when it was agreed that the aim of agricultural and food policy should be to expand industrial and agricultural trade.
We on this side of the House broadly accept that British policy must cover these six considerations. The Bill seeks to give practical effect to the policy the Government announced on 27th May last. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted that events have really forced him to act. The tragedy is that the Government have not acted in many directions over the last 10 years.

Mr. Soames: indicated dissent.

Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He often chides the Liberals for seeking to create a managed


market, but he, more than anyone else in the Government, defended the managed market in Europe and advised the farming community to accept the Treaty of Rome. Now he is so enthusiastic the other way that I am a bit suspicious. In May, the right hon. Gentleman said in our debate that pressure of events outside decided that there had to be a change of policy.
In other words, the Government have had to face certain economic realities and have been pushed, through pressure of events, into making new decisions. That was admitted by the Minister last May when he also said:
Different countries have felt the effect of this in different ways, but all of them have found it difficult to secure for their agricultural industries a proper share in the general improvement in living standards. They have responded to it in different ways."—[Official Report, 27th May, 1963; Vol. 678, c. 442.]
The right hon. Gentleman went on to deal with production. We can see here how the Government have had to admit that a crisis has emerged for the country. He mentioned the problem of increasing Exchequer support. There has also been a crisis for small farmers. Many of them have had to face these pressures and some have been forced out of business.
In a sense, the Government have had to take certain actions which we, over and over again, have prodded them to take. In discussing policy, I hope that we shall concentrate broadly on the issue. We shall examine in detail at a later stage the proposals for horticulture, import levies and administration. But now we must consider the place of support in our policy. This is a major problem.
The Minister himself has explained what a problem this is. In May, he mentioned that support had increased by more than one-third in the last three years—by over £100 million to a total of £360 million, consisting of £120 million in direct grants and £240 million in deficiency payments. The larger proportion of this latter figure—£210 million—was effective support for cereals and meat.
I agree that this support policy, as the right hon. Member said, has given to our consumer cheaper food than in any other country, probably, in the Western world. The figures have been published

by the United Nations. We owe the security of our agricultural industry and of the consumer to the basic policies which were pursued by the Labour Government in the Agriculture Act, 1947.

Mr. Bullard: Oh.

Mr. Peart: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman should jeer at the 1947 Act. His right hon. Friend paid tribute to it.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) did pretty well by it.

Mr. Bullard: I was not jeering in any sense at all. I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman was going on to explain how his proposals for commodity commissions would work.

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman should await the development of my speech. I was taking up a point made by the Minister and was pointing out how refreshing it was that a Conservative Minister should pay tribute to the 1947 Act. It is refreshing because hon. Members opposite divided against Part I of the Bill in Committee. [Hon. Members: "No."] It is true.
The Agriculture Act, 1957, passed by the present Administration, reaffirmed general support conditions. We claim that we played a substantial part in the establishment of a sound agricultural policy affecting both the farmer and the consumer. But, inevitably, there must be control in the support, and on that there is general agreement on both sides of the House. This was announced not only by the Minister, but by the previous Prime Minister, who stated that we must somehow control Exchequer support. In the Bill there is emphasis in Part II on direct grants, which may really be expressed as production grants in that they will amount to several million pounds over the next 10 years. Production grants will continue.
The right hon. Gentleman is seeking to control the deficiency payments system. I have always argued that the deficiency payments system cannot properly operate in a free market. We put this argument two years ago, when he presented increased Estimates, and it still holds. Now the right hon. Gentleman accepts that we must have a


controlled market and that is a major change in Government policy.
However, this is a very big problem, because it affects both the farming community and the consumer. The small farmer, however, has not been affected so much by deficiency payments, because he does not get the benefit enjoyed by the larger farmer. Indeed, there has been a crisis in farm incomes. Hon. Members must know, through correspondence with their branches of the National Farmers' Union, and from their own study of the industry, that this is true. I have here figures which I believe to be reliable and have quoted them before.
These figures show the trend in one section of the industry—among the small farmers. Let us take the small milk producer as an example. In 1954, the number of registered milk producers in the United Kingdom was 173,740; this had dropped to 170,440 in 1956, to 162,600 in 1958, to 151,700 in 1960 and to 143,000 last year. On average, about 4,500 producers have left the industry over the past eight years. This figure was given to me by Agriculture House and shows that there has been difficulty for the small man.
The same is true of the poultry producer. Let us remember that for many of our small people no benefits have been forthcoming for a long time.

Mr. Percy Browne: I fully accept that many small farmers have gone out of milk production, but was the hon. Gentleman quoting figures for all farmers going out of milk production?

Mr. Peart: I was quoting the figures of milk producers.

Mr. Browne: Under what acreage group?

Mr. Peart: I gave merely the general figures and not the acreage.

Mr. Browne: The hon. Gentleman said that they were mainly small farmers.

Mr. Peart: They are mainly small farmers. With his experience of Devon and the South-West, the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) must know that they are mainly the small men. I hope that he accepts my main

point. The small producer has had to face difficulties. Of course, the small producer has had benefits from the Government. Does he accept that?

Mr. Browne: All producers, irrespective of whether they are large or small, have had benefits from the Government, if guarantees and grants are benefits. We all accept that. The hon. Member said that the number of milk producers had decreased by more than 30,000 over the last eight years, and said that this was what had happened to the small milk producers. I asked whether the figures he gave were for all milk producers, or only small milk producers. He did not make that clear.

Mr. Peart: It is the total number, but within that total number the vast majority are the small men. [Hon. Members: "No."] Hon. Members can check the figures if they like.
It is in Part I of the Bill that we see the main impact of the Government's import policy. The Minister is not certain how it will operate. The introduction of levies is a major decision. The Minister is to have power by Order to apply a levy from time to time on the import of certain commodities. This is undoubtedly a major change of policy which will affect many imports. We import half the world's imports of meat and three-quarters of the world's imports of butter. The Minister gave those figures in a good speech to a recent conference in Amsterdam.
We are dealing with a major part of our food supplies and we have to scrutinise these levies carefully. I have always believed that imports must be phased and that stability must be created. The Labour Party has always stressed this and recently announced that our basic policy would be to co-ordinate imports with home production. However, we are not certain that the Bill suggests the best way. The Minister did not make a case today, for he was vague and uncertain. He will have to make his case in much more detail in Committee.

Mr. Cole: I am sure that the hon. Member wants to be fair, but I think that he has made a slip. My right hon. Friend said very carefully that meat would be a matter of regulating quantities and not price. The hon. Member has now included the lot.

Mr. Peart: The Minister is to be given power to go beyond cereals. Of course, he said that he would apply this levy only to cereals, but he is taking power to apply it to any agricultural product, if he can justify doing so. The Minister has announced that he wishes to phase imports with home production. We do not dispute the necessity for that, but we are not certain that the right hon. Gentleman has made out a case for the levy. He did not give much detail and he appeared to be uncertain, and that is why we shall examine the Bill closely in Committee.
The Minister has recently made many agreements about the import of meat and he has announced his policy towards imports from the Argentine and about phasing them over a period. A working party has been set up to deal with that. We have also had the bacon agreement, by which the United Kingdom will have 222,400 tons of the 615,000 tons market, the rest being divided on a quota arrangement among the countries which export bacon to the United Kingdom. This may be all right and may be the pattern for future agreements, but the agreements might lead to a policy of restriction.
The Secretary of State for Scotland must have had representations from the Scottish N.F.U. on this subject I am not saying that the Scottish N.F.U. is right, but I should like to know from the Secretary of State what his answer is to those representations. Is he satisfied that there will be no policy of restriction? It is essential to have international agreements on specific commodities, but we are not sure that what is proposed is the right pattern, nor whether quantitative agreements imposed on the home producer and linked to the levy system will be to the advantage of all.
We are trying to find out what the Minister has in mind. I have been asked to justify commodity commissions. They are not mentioned in the Bill, but I am prepared to argue the need for commodity commissions to regulate the phasing of the imports of cereals and meat products. This is a view which has been accepted by the Liberal Party.

Mr. Prior: If the hon. Member accepts that some system of import control is desirable, and therefore accepts that this must be done by agreement in order to safeguard our trading with

other nations, and if the price of this import control is standard quantity at home, does the Labour Party accept the principle of a standard quantity?

Mr. Peart: It depends on what percentage is to be regarded as the standard. The Government are now negotiating with producers, but we have not been included in those consultations and I do not see why I should give promises. This must be the responsibility of the Government. In principle, I accept the need for a guarantee applying to a standard quantity. I have never argued that we should have unlimited production or, to use a phrase, that we should grow grapes on Ben Nevis. Obviously, we must think in terms of sensible and moderate expansion. That is the view of my party. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's question has removed some uncertainty.
I do not propose to go into detail about commodity commissions. It may well be than the commodity commission system is the better way of doing it, but, when we previously discussed levies and the control of imports, the Minister said that he would consider setting up a body to deal with this. I hope that I am not being too tedious by quoting the Minister at great length, but on that occasion he said:
The detailed arrangements for the different commodities which we would aim to agree with our overseas suppliers might well need to include a body to keep under review the level of supplies and also the phasing of those supplies in or markets in the light of changes in the pattern here and overseas and other factors, such as the opening up of new markets."—[Official Report, 22nd May, 1963; Vol. 678, c. 449.]
That may suggest that the Minister is considering setting up a commodity commission, and, who knows, he may adopt what the Labour Party has announced.
The right hon. Gentleman said at that time that it would be unwise to decide on the machinery to use. When hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about commodity commissions, they ought to be careful. During the next few weeks the Government may announce a major change in the view that they have held so far and accept the principle of commodity commissions. What is the explanation for the new-found enthusiasm of the Minister for this form of control? Is it to prepare for our entry into the Common Market?

Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman has no reason to think that the alterations that we are making in the pattern of support are other than to benefit agriculture in this country. He knows this, because, after we announced our policy last May, in July hon. Gentlemen opposite announced a not dissimilar alteration in their policy. The hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) went to Swaffham and said that they would do much the same sort of thing.
This proposal stands on its merits. It is a reasonable and proper alteration to make to enable our system of support to exist in today's supply and demand pattern which is totally different from what it was when the system was first introduced.

Mr. Peart: Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I was not an enthusiastic supporter of entry into the Common Market. Despite what he has just said, I should still like to know whether the Bill has been introduced to prepare for our entry into the Common Market. [Hon. Members: "No."] It is all very very for hon. Gentlemen opposite to say "No", but the right hon. Gentleman was an enthusiastic supporter of European federalism, and on many occasions, both in this House and in the country, he enjoined the farming community to support the Common Market. He also defended the Common Market cereals regulations.
In view of the right hon. Gentleman's past enthusiasm for the Common Market, I am still a little suspicious of his motives. I do not see why he should be so pompous now. My suspicions about the right hon. Gentleman's enthusiasm for the Common Market may be well founded. After all, the levy system operates in Europe. We have seen it operating in relation to the chicken war. American supplies are to be restricted, with disastrous effects. Will the same sort of thing happen here? If it should, we must realise the danger of retaliation. Hon. Members should also realise that the levy system could work against our producers. It could lead to a rise in the price of feeding stuffs, which, in turn, could materially affect home production.
Our livestock producers were worried about this. If a levy system were intro-

duced now, unless we had certain safeguards our livestock producers could find themselves running into grave difficulties. Hon. Gentlemen opposite know that to be true, because on many occasions that view has been expressed by our producers.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is in favour of controlling imports, or at least co-ordinating them with home production. How would he do it, other than by introducing a system of levies?

Mr. Peart: Co-ordination can be carried out by phasing through commodity commissions, or by price control. The levy system is only one way of doing it.

Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman says that an alternative to the levy system is control by price. How would he control by price, except by imposing a levy?

Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman knows that it is possible to control by price. It is not necessary to extract a levy, which means imposing a major tax. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was making the case that this was only one method which the Government had considered.

Mr. Harold Davies (Leek): If the hon. Gentleman looks at the Bible, he will find that Joseph, in Egypt, knew the answer to this thousands of years ago.

Mr. Peart: Are the Government negotiating with France on the question of French meat imports? France is not favourably disposed to the import of New Zealand lamb. Are the Government proposing to make a deal with the French? I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman really is thinking in terms of going into the Common Market. He has not changed his opinion, and that is why people in the industry, and hon. Members in this House—

Mr. Soames: rose—

Mr. Peart: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will wait until I have completed my sentence. I know that he gets touchy when he is criticised. I shall give way in a moment, because I know that he likes to hold the Floor. There is nothing dishonourable in his wanting to


join the Common Market, We know that he has been a passionate defender of European unity, so it is not unreasonable to say that he still wants to join the Common Market.

Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman has again said that the motive behind the Bill is to make it easier for this country to go into the Common Market. I have said, and I repeat, that what we are endeavouring to do is to introduce a system of support which, in the present situation, is the best for agriculture, which needs to be buttressed in this way. The proposals stand on their merits. How often have I to say this before the hon. Gentleman ceases saying that these proposals have been brought in because we are preparing to go into the Common Market?

Mr. Peart: On many occasions the right hon. Gentleman and the Government showed quite clearly that they were prepared to enter the Common Market, which would have meant that our system of support would have been drastically altered. The farmer would have had to get his price from the market, with the result that the price of food would have risen. The Government were prepared to accept that, and I am merely suggesting that, now that the negotiations for entry into the Common Market have broken down, the Government may think it is important to build up our own industry so that we can negotiate from a position of strength.
I am still suspicious of the Government. The hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) was a great critic of the Minister. If he is convinced that the Minister has changed his mind, he is indeed naive.

Mr. Fell: Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and I am taking the Minister at his word. I am beginning to think that the hon. Gentleman, by continuing to stress this, is casting aspersions on the probity of the Minister.

Mr. Peart: Again—what a pompous intervention! The hon. Member talks about the probity of the Minister. I am merely saying that I thought that the Minister was a sincere European. I have said this over and over again. I am not condemning him for it, although

I disagree with him about it. I am merely wondering whether he still believes this. Perhaps he hopes that negotiations will be reopened, and that Britain will enter. It may be that the levy system which now operates in Europe has inspired him to a change here. However, I will leave it at that. I merely say that I am suspicious. I do not trust Tory Ministers, in a political sense.
I return to the question of marketing. Here again, in dealing with marketing policy, the Minister has repeatedly said, "Leave it to the industry." Now there has been a change, in respect of horticulture, and we are glad of it. As for marketing, time and time again hon. Members on this side of the House have tried to improve the legislation that has been put before us by the Government. The Minister will not mind my saying that we are glad that he has changed, and that he now accepts some responsibility, instead of leaving it all to the industry. This is a welcome change.
I agree that we must wait for the Verdon Smith report on meat. We were promised this report in the autumn, but have not yet received it. There may be good reasons for its not having come out. Perhaps the Secretary of State will be able to tell us when we are likely to have it. It is a major report on marketing, and will no doubt affect Government policy—if it can be affected—on meat marketing.
We accept what the Government have done about horticultural marketing. We tried to make the last major horticulture Bill a better one. We tried to provide more adequate powers. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) pressing the Government not only in the House, but in Committee. I remember that when I moved an Amendment which would have given the Horticultural Marketing Council power to advise the Government and to provide information on imports the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr Bullard) and the hon. Member for Lowestoft voted against it. We tried to provide a sensible body like the Horticultural Marketing Council with some teeth but we had no support from the hon. Members.

Mr. Bullard: Why mention me in particular?

Mr. Peart: Because the hon. Member voted against my Amendment. He was one of the guilty men, and he must accept responsibility, as a leading agriculturist in his own party.
We very much welcome this change of heart, which will aid the producer in improving existing horticulture schemes and will give financial support for the development of our markets. The hon. Member for King's Lynn, the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir P. Agnew), my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough and I recently accompanied a delegation to Europe. Its report has been published. There is no doubt that we have lagged behind Europe in the building of markets. I am glad to say that the two Labour-controlled authorities of Coventry and Sheffield have built new markets. But we still have a long way to go, and if we are not careful we shall be left much farther behind by Europe.
The construction of markets and their physical siting is important for the marketing of horticultural produce. Those of us who saw what was happening in Europe, know full well that this is an urgent matter. Our markets need to be reconstructed. We need new markets and a new type of administrative machinery. I do not want to commit anyone on this; I merely ask whether the Government really have a regional plan. It is all very well to talk about throughput, but is there to be a regional plan on market construction? I have asked this question before and I expect an answer from the Secretary of State. It must be of some interest to Scotland. Will special emphasis be laid on regions like Scotland, the north of England, the South-West and elsewhere? It is important that markets should be planned with reference to communications. This raises the old question of the site of Covent Garden.
We also welcome the proposals of the Government in Part III of the Bill which deal with standards and the grading of produce. Here again, the Government are taking tremendous powers. They have at last woken up and are proceeding to intervene. They are not leaving everything to the industry. They are

seeking to adopt a positive approach to an important part of marketing. Perhaps we may also have from the Secretary of State an announcement about the creation of a new body with certain executive powers. Is it the intention of the Government to resurrect the Horticultural Marketing Council, or are they prepared to leave the situation as it is, with direct ministerial supervision of grading, and so on, by new personnel who will have to be attracted to the Ministry?
We have discussed broad agricultural policy, import control, the phasing of imports with home production, the giving of wide and sweeping powers to the Minister in relation to import prices, and the power to bring in a levy. This could have good or bad effects; we are not sure yet. That is why we should press this matter constructively in Committee.
The Bill also seeks to make the horticulture industry more viable. After a period of four years it is expected that the industry will be able to stand on its feet, and that tariffs need not be used. In principle, I accept this. We are glad that aid is to be given to the industry on marketing and also on producer co-operation. Whatever we may say about these two aspects of the industry we cannot divorce from international considerations any approach that we make towards building up our agriculture and bringing about a proper food policy.
I still stress the need for a world food programme. I still stress the need to initiate a world food board, and to bring in international commodity agreements such as those mentioned by the Minister. I want these agreements, and I want them to be supervised by a new world food board. The Minister mentioned that the bacon agreement could be a pattern for regional agreements between various sovereign States in the wider Europe. It may be that such agreements can be superseded by something larger. I want agreement on policies in Europe through the O.E.C.D. There is no reason why this should not be done. We have concluded agreements with Denmark and other countries on bacon, and with the Argentine on meat. We must see the pattern of a world food board emerging.
This is right, and I want the Minister to take a lead in this matter. This is the sort of leadership we need. The producers support it. At the last great international, agriculture conference, held in Dublin, international agriculture producers declared themselves in support of a world policy. Any import policy must be fitted into the world picture.
To me, it is a tragedy that as we talk about food production in this country, and about the restriction of output, in many parts of the world people are suffering from poverty and starvation. This has been said many times, but I make no apology for repeating it today. We recall the tragedies of the 1920s and 1930s, the burning of crops and the payments to farmers to induce them not to grow too much. It may be summed up in the old Canadian jingle:
Here lies the body of Farmer Pete
Who died through growing too much wheat.
We do not want that to happen again. We must take the lead in creating proper world conditions. I believe that our agricultural system and our techniques are the best in the world and certainly better than anything in Europe. Here we could give the world leadership which is essential and important. Today the tractor and the plough are much more important than the machine gun and the gunboat.
I invite hon. Members to consider the international aspect of this matter. To me, it is common sense to do so and not simply idealism. The idea is supported by the producers of this country, the members of the National Farmers' Unions and the producers in Western Europe as well as in the United States and the Western world. If we could only take the initiative, we should be laying the foundation for a sounder food and agriculture policy in our own country.

5.22 p.m.

Sir Richard Nugent: I am glad of the chance to say a word in support of my right hon. Friend for having introduced this Bill. May I begin by welcoming the large measure of support for it which was accorded by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). If he will not take it as a compliment, I thought that the hon. Gentleman showed considerable ingenuity in finding some material over which to disagree.

Mr. Harold Davies: There is plenty of it.

Sir R. Nugent: I looked through my copy of the Bill to see whether there was a Part IV concerned with the Common Market, but I did not find one, and so I think that the hon. Member for Workington did well to keep within the rules of order.
I was particularly glad to hear him state roundly that he was in favour of a system of import control and of a standard quantity concept applied to the price guarantee. I am sure that these are right principles that my right hon. Friend has put into the Bill. My only regret about the speech of thehon. Member for Workington was that the commodity commission still remains shrouded in mystery. I shall look forward to hearing more in the next edition.

Mr. Peart: The right hon. Gentleman should bear in mind what the Minister said about machinery. He maybe contemplating some sort of commission or board. The right hon. Gentleman will have to be careful.

Sir R. Nugent: That may be. We may both have to be careful. I am just interested to hear what is the project in the mind of the hon. Member regarding a commodity commission.
It has been evident to me now for some time—indeed I remember that in February, 1962, in relation to the Supplementary Estimates, we had a figure of £78 million before the House—that the existing system of agricultural price support by the deficiency payment, open-ended, would not stand the test of time in what is today a world seller's market for food contrasted with the buyer's market in which we introduced the system. Let me give credit where it is due and say that I warmly commend the hon. Member and his right hon. Friends for introducing the Measure which become the 1947 Act and which was, of course, the parent of this system. It fell to my right hon. Friends and myself to put that Act into practical form during the 1951–55 Government so that the consumer could have a choice over the counter. But the 1947 Act was the parent of it and is the parent of the idea of extending standard quantities to these commodities now.
I think it is true to say that the success of Part I of the Bill depends more on what is not in the Measure than what is in it. The first essential is agreement with our overseas suppliers, and the second is to establish a system of standard quantities for those two major commodities, meat and cereals. I agree with the hon. Member for Workington that our obligations to the Commonwealth, to G.A.T.T. and E.F.T.A. are absolute. On these depend the whole structure of British trade. Without the agreement of these overseas suppliers my right hon. Friend cannot proceed to limit imports at all. I am hopeful that the attraction of having a more stable market here with a more stable price will be strong enough for our overseas suppliers to reckon that on balance it would be worthwhile for them to agree. But we must be quite clear that the quid pro quo for that agreement is the introduction of standard quantities here which ensure that the restraint on overseas suppliers is not taken advantage of by our own producers in order gradually to squeeze them completely out of the market.
This proposal is open to attack on two fronts. First, there is the front dealt with by my right hon. Friend at some length, that it could be damaging to the terms of trade for this country. Secondly, it could be damaging to home production in that it will restrict home production, and the policy is on a knife edge if it is to succeed.
Let me deal with the first point, the terms of trade. It is, of course, vital to our economy that our food imports as well as raw materials should come into this country at prices which are favourable when related to the price level of our exports. This is vital in order to enable us to exist as a country and to maintain our general standard of life. So the level of the minimum price set under Part I of the Bill is absolutely crucial in deciding whether or not this system will operate to the advantage of this country. I was grateful to my right hon. Friend for dealing with this at some length and making plain that this price will be set by a Statutory Order which must be brought before the House so that Parliament may pass judgment on it.
As my right hon. Friend explained, normally this price will be set, and should be set, at what might be called a fair world price level, a level which normally would not operate; it would operate only in exceptional circumstances. The result is that so long as it is set at that level the amount of a commodity shut out of this market, which would otherwise have come in at a cheaper price, and which would be kept off the home market by this device, would be relatively small. In the past the quantities which have been sufficient, so to speak, to break the market have been quite small. It has often been said that 2 per cent. either way would cause either a glut or a shortage. The amount is quite small—something of that order. What happens in practice now is that, if the market price for meat or cereals collapses, our overseas suppliers as quickly as they can stop sending supplies here to save themselves from losing on that account.
The real check to further cut-price imports coming to this country which could have an apparent short-term advantage for consumer interest is the volume of home production already here in this market. It is here because it is Government policy to support home agriculture with price guarantees and to make sure that our agriculture is kept on a high and healthy level. This is the basic reason why more cut-price agricultural produce from abroad cannot come into this country. Therefore, the introduction of this minimum price system with levies is no more than a mechanical refinement to supplement existing farm policy.
In practice it will make little difference to the terms of trade and the average price of food in this country. It will operate only seldom and the net amount of food affected and the net price effect will be relatively small provided the minimum price is set at the right level. My right hon. Friend has said that he proposes to deal with meat by a quota system, but I imagine that the sanction, so to speak, to ensure that the agreement is kept is that, if that did not work, although it is the most convenient practical arrangement, he could always switch over to the minimum price system instead.
There is a further point in regard to British trade policy that if primary-producer prices fall too low, although there may be a short-term advantage to us as a major buying market, there is a long-term disadvantage to the whole of world trade because the primary producers' purchasing power thereby falls and that in due course is reflected on to manufacturers in this and other countries, because primary producers cannot purchase what they make. Therefore, it is in the general interest that the food prices should be kept at a fair level and not fall catastrophically low.

Mr. Harold Davies: It has occurred to me in listening to the interesting speech of the right hon. Member that there would be certain implications in this in the G.A.T.T. I wonder if those implications were considered before the policy was arrived at and what the right hon. Member thinks about that.

Sir R. Nugent: I have mentioned the point and did not go into further detail, but we are specifically bound by our obligations under the General Agreement. We would not restrict imports from overseas suppliers without breach of those agreements, which would have very serious implications for our trade throughout the world unless there was agreement between the supplying countries and ourselves. So long as there is such agreement, we are outside the terms of the G.A.T.T. That is what my right hon. Friend has to achieve in his discussions with various countries. I am hopeful that these countries will see that this gives them a prospect of getting a fair share of the British market at a fair price. I do not underestimate the formidable undertaking of my right hon. Friend. Nevertheless, his powers of negotiation are considerable and he certainly has my best wishes.
The second criticism which can be made of this policy is in regard to home production interests. It could be damaging there, because it would restrict home production. I think it would be right to say that every commodity except meat and cereals has some sort of standard quantity built into an agreement in one way or another. There is no novelty about this. On the whole, they work well and fairly and I do not think they create serious hardship. Now

my right hon. Friend must consider these two major commodities.
If there has been one common complaint among my friends in the farming community aver recent years it has been continuously that there should be some limitation of imports. This has gone on year after year. Here is a chance to get a limitation of imports, but the quo in the quid pro quo is that farmers here must accept a system of standard quantities if they are to get the limitation of imports which can be got in those circumstances. If they do so they have the prospect of the growth of the market here as it continues to grow with a fairly rapidly rising population and if no change is justified, in very much the same way as the bacon market arrangements to which the hon. Member for Workington referred.
I am quite certain that if this opportunity is not taken the present system will not stand the test of time. The combination of circumstances of greatly increased production here, of large world surpluses, and the fact that the British market is one of the very few—if not the only one—remaining open to world food supplies, will mean that the pressure will be so great that at any time large supplies of food could come here and cause the efficiency payments to shoot up to a cost which no Government could possibly stand. That is the practical issue.
I feel sure that most farmers will say that this is a sound practical proposition which it is in their interests to accept as a fair basis for agricultural policy.

Mr. P. Browne: My right hon. Friend speaks with, great authority, and I have been listening with great interest; but I had hope I that he would be more emphatic on one point He said that with standard quantities and control of imports on which we are all agreed—I am glad that the hon. Member for Working-ton (Mr. Peart) also agrees—our farmers have had a chance of enjoying an increasing market. He ought to be more emphatic and to say that they must have their share of the market.

Sir R. Nugent: I should not prolong my comments on that point. My hon. Friend has already reminded me that I should limit the length of my remarks. Glad as I should be to discuss this


further, I must leave it to other hon. Members.
I wish to say a word or two about horticulture. I congratulate my right hon. Friend most warmly on the Clauses dealing with horticulture. They should take horticultural policy out of the continuous dilemma of post-war years in which its stability has depended on a tariff system which was under constant pressure in the interests of British trade generally. Now the industry is to have a chance to establish itself with this very comprehensive schedule of grants and assistance, to improve its efficiency and make itself completely competitive. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on getting the agreement of the National Farmers' Union to this and, perhaps even more important in regard to the £50 million involved, getting Treasury agreement to the forking out of the money. That is a difficulty which has faced all previous Ministers of Agriculture.
The trend of the day is undoubtedly to reduce tariffs. We see the Kennedy Round coming next year and we all have great hopes of it, but in terms of the trade of this country the progressive reduction of tariffs must be to our general interests. This is bound to put the horticulture tariffs under increasing stress. Therefore, I warmly welcome the alternative policy to give the industry stability.
I should like to express a word of caution to my right hon. Friend. In the review that is intended to take place after four years my right hon. Friend or his successor should look with great care at the sensitive items in the tariff schedule. There should be no certainty that the tariff will be removed at the end of that time. It may still be necessary to maintain it for, perhaps, a few years on some items if the industry is to be kept in reasonable health and productivity. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will give an assurance that that is intended in the Bill.
I agree with ray right hon. Friend that it is a great credit to the leaders of the N.F.U. that they have seen that it is in the interest of the industry to support this wise and far-sighted Measure. I would remind my right hon. Friend that in the whole picture he put before the

House the theme of marketing runs continuously. My right hon. Friend has made a valuable contribution to the stimulus of farmers' ideas about taking a greater part in the marketing of their products through the Agricultural Market Development Committee. The N.F.U. has set up a committee to put this into action. It has produced about a hundred schemes to the tune of about £½worth of grant.
However, this is only an ad hoc body and it cannot deal with the academic necessities of research and teaching. The whole structure of agricultural marketing needs to be built up from its foundations. It is necessary for us to think in terms of a permanent body with the duty of having continuing oversight of the development of agriculture and horticultural marketing to see that the necessary research and teaching institutes grow up to meet the needs of the industry of the day. I warmly welcome the Bill and wish my right hon. Friend well with the formidable negotiations that he ahead of him.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House welcome the Bill and appreciate the amount of work that must be done to implement the policy it contains.
Without wishing to go out of order, I should like to say that I do not understand why the Minister became so testy when he was questioned about whether or not the shadow of the Common Market was involved in all this. However, I will not proceed along those lines because I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to get testy again. We all agree that the National Farmers' Union has one of the strongest lobbies in the country and that it sees to it that hon. Members who are interested in agriculture are briefed. It is because of this that most hon. Members in the Chamber today have been given this blue piece of paper which I hold in my hand.

Hon. Members: Green.

Mr. Davies: Having some knowledge of light and physics, I can assure hon. Members opposite that it depends at which angle one looks at a colour in artificial light. For the moment I will call the document blue. Although the


farmers have not had a chance for some
years to see how a Labour Government works, they may recollect, however, that in 1947 Labour's agricultural policy led to them being able for the first time to pay their contributions to the Conservative Party. I hope that hon. Members opposite will not push me too far on this score. Without jocularity, the N.F.U. has rightly welcomed the Bill as one of the first efforts to get stability in the market.
I do not wish to delay the House for long, since other hon. Members wish to speak. I must point out, however, that certain aspects of the Bill need close consideration. We must consider the prices obtained by the producer. We all agree that import control is necessary and, despite the scoffing that goes on on the benches opposite about planning, it is acknowledged throughout the House that if we are to have a modern society and a modern agriculture industry planning is necessary.
British agriculture cannot be left to what are called the free, fresh winds of world competition. Let us hear no more silly scoffing about farming from Whitehall. Some people were prepared to farm from Brussels not long ago, so all this cheap talk we hear about planning must cease. We must get a constructive policy towards the industry and this must entail planning. This planning must be centralised somewhere, and in Britain it happens to be in Whitehall. I am pleased to see that many hon. Members opposite are being converted to our thinking on this subject. I fear that if we are not careful they will take all our clothes—all our policies—and we shall go naked into the General Election. Let us remember that we are getting near to the General Election. I estimated that up till last week the promises made by the Government were worth expenditure of about £12,000 million.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order.

Mr. Davies: I thought that I should be caught on that one, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member will relate whatever figures he is using to the Bill which we are now considering.

Mr. Davies: And of that figure of £12,000 million about £55 million is promised by the Bill. I hope that brings me in order. I recall that when the late Hugh Gaitskell promised only £800 million to the electorate we were asked how we intended to find the money. Today we are considering spending £55 million in one go.
It must be accepted that British agriculture can no longer be left purely to private enterprise and the so-called fresh winds of competition. We are now developing an agricultural axiom. British agriculture cannot stand the cold winds of world competition. All hon. Members, even the Liberals, must accept this if the industry is to have a square deal. The Minister faces the problem of giving a fair share of the gross national product to agriculture. Should it be 4 per cent., 4½ per cent. or 5 per cent? No one can say absolutely and mathematically what it should be. In any case, we have too much of an arid, intellectual mathematical approach to too many human problems, especially agriculture.
Without going into the actual mathematics of it, we need to be given a rough idea of what the Government consider should be the true size of the agriculture industry. This will give security to British farming and horticulture. It should then be possible to tell our farmers, "We will need you for the next 20 to 30 years and there will be no great change in the way the industry will be affected." No party has yet worked out what chare of the gross national product should be represented by agriculture.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is it not true that the N.E.D.C. has recommended both a percentage of national output as a whole and also an agricultural proportion of it?

Mr. Davies: I am grateful to the hon. Member for reminding me of that. Does it suggest that this should be for a definite period of time?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: There is no limit.

Mr. Davies: I thank the hon. Member for adding that, because it puts the right colour on my previous statement and there is no argument between us that


there is need for the agricultural and food producing community generally to know what its share will be. Methods can be beaten out in detail, whether or not on the rostrum at a General Election, but whatever the politics may be there are only a limited number of ways of arriving at this objective open to any of us.
In the House over the years a number of hon. and right hon. Members who are interested in horticulture have been urging from the days of the Linlithgow Report in 1923and the Lucas Report that the industry should be looked at carefully. The faults in the present marketing system have been pointed out by both sides. Both sides of the House at different times have tried to make capital out of their approach to the problem, but no attempt has been made to achieve an approximate relationship between horticultural supply and potential demand up to now. This Measure is the first attempt. In present conditions where wholesaling is effected by about 8,000 individual traders it is impossible to minimise conditions of glut and scarcity. We on this side of the House have pointed that out from time to time.
Importers and wholesalers frequently hold back supplies in the hope of higher prices, and when goods are eventually released the effect of gluts are often accentuated. This is one of the anomalies that we have to face. I should like to know what action the Government propose to take if wholesalers are found to be holding up supplies in the hope of creating a false scarcity. Up to recently there have been only 23 main markets for these supplies and this has led to the practice of reconsignment which in the case of Covent Garden has affected 40 per cent. of total consignments received on the market.
If it is Government policy to extend regional marketing, transport becomes an important issue. I think that it is in order to point out that a proper policy of regional marketing cannot be carried out unless there is good rural transport. In this connection, the Beeching inquiry is to be criticised for not having fully consulted the Ministry of Agriculture. The Secretary of State for Scotland, who is now present, will appreciate that we

have all received letters from the north of Scotland dealing with the lack of transport in that area. We want road and rail transport co-ordinated to bring fragile and perishable good a quickly to the points of sale.
What other methods would have been open to us if the Government had had the necessary courage? I believe that horticulturists estimate the cost of an acre of glass at between £18,000 and £23,000. Fertilisers are expensive. Some Government must have the courage to break the monopolies in glass manufacture and fertiliser production. In many cases subsidies are not getting through to those for whom they were intended. They are going to the monopolists. I need not develop this subject before an intelligent audience like this. It is true that there are occasions when hon and right hon. Members opposite lack intelligence, but, perhaps contrary to expectation, the agriculturists and horticulturists opposite take a close interest in their subjects. I hope that the Government will look into this matter and will consider whether something can be done.
One of the objectives of agricultural policy in the next five to ten years must be the maintenance of a prosperous agricultural industry. We must try to let agriculturists know what their share of the gross national product is to be. We must keep food prices at a reasonable level, and in all this talking about the farmer we must not forget the consumer and the housewife. There must be fair and reasonable prices for the consumer. This cannot be ensured without a smooth transport system and a system of controls and safeguards.
We must also safeguard our balance of payments by reducing as far as possible and legitimately our imported supplies. We must maintain the interests of our world trade, and markets for our traditional suppliers must also be kept open so that we may have some bargaining power.
Whatever Government come to power, they must face the fact that Government expenditure on agricultural support must ultimately be limited. It must be reduced gradually to try to maintain efficiency in the industry so that the difficulty of having, for example, a Supplementary Estimate of £78 million


for deficiency payments may not again confront either side of the House. If the industry is to remain healthy and strong we must on no account be prepared to sacrifice British agriculture mainly to industrialists or to the whims of finance.
Recently some of us had the pleasure of listening to speakers at a meeting of the National Farmers' Association of the Republic of Ireland. I should like to know what policy the Government propose to pursue in relation to Ireland. Fifty-five per cent. of Irish Republic exports come to Britain, and 76 per cent. of the Republic's imports come from our markets. In return, the Irish, per capita, are among the biggest buyers of industrial products in the world. I ask hon. Members to note the qualifying phrase, per capita.As the Irish Republic market is so near, it would be worth while investigating to the full the possibility of securing a better understanding between the Republic and Great Britain on the import of Irish agricultural products at fair prices. The Irish Republic does pretty well out of us. I do not mean that in any pompous sense, but I repeat that this neighbouring source of fresh supplies is well worth looking into.
I give one word of warning. I believe that the British housewife and consumer is beginning to get tired of frozen goods. We are reaching an age when the refrigerator is no longer king. Never mind the television advertisements and the famous brains truster who says that he has never tasted peas so good. We are getting tired of tasteless frozen foods and there is a market for fresh English horticultural produce, if Dr. Beeching will leave us the transport and if we do not clutter up the roads, so that lorries can get from Cornwall to Covent Garden before the food goes rotten. If we want an agricultural policy, we must link it with these things. Therefore, I welcome the Bill. In Committee there will be many questions which we shall want to ask, but I am sure that we shall make this a good Bill.

6.1 p.m.

Sit Anthony Hurd: The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) has given us one of his old-fashioned speeches which must go down very well with those in his constituency.

Mr. Harold Davies: Is it so old-fashioned to want decent transport?

Sir A. Hurd: Perhaps the audience in the hon. Gentleman's constituency are a little old-fashioned. too.
I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. I felt, when he was speaking, that we here may well find—I think that we are finding today—common agreement on the basic fundamental lines of agricultural policy well before they are likely to achieve agreement on a common agricultural policy in Europe. It was per laps, fortunate for us that things turned out as they did in January, and that we have been able to work out our own salvation and our own plans for our agriculture and horticulture according to our needs and circumstances.
Certainly, it has been fortunate for us that we have had, and have today, a Minister of Agriculture who has been very quick to grasp a situation and also well capable of convincing his Cabinet colleagues on the line of action which should be taken and pursued. He is doing a very good job for agriculture and horticulture and I am glad that he is still left where he is in view of the various changes that have taken place in the Government while he has been Minister of Agriculture.
This Bill is another milestone on the road of agricultural policy. I think that it will prove to be as important as the milestones of 1947 and 1957, which I well remember. We are setting out to remodel and develop the country's agricultural and horticultural policy to fit the needs of the day. That was done in 1947, again in 1957. and it is being done again today.
We in the Conservative Party, do not mind facing the need for change and we are prompt to take effective action to meet a new situation. This is what we are doing today. I do not think that it is necessary to argue the case for looking after British agriculture and horticulture. All of us in this House, looking back to the war years and to the peace years of difficulty after the war, and considering the state of the world today and our balance of payments and our world trading problems, recognise the need to use our land fully and to good advantage to strengthen the economy of our country. That, I think, is generally


accepted. It is the performance of those on the land which has convinced the politicians that this is the right and proper course for our country.
I regard Part I of the Bill as setting the nation's seal of confidence on the industry's capacity in terms of future achievement. What we are doing is to give the Government of the day powers to safeguard by import controls the share of our market which a fully productive British agriculture should fill. This is an important departure in national policy. It may well be that, armed with these powers, the Government will be able to secure by voluntary agreement the allocation of the market both with our Dominion friends and with foreign suppliers, who will realise that it is to their advantage as well as ours to have a stabilised market and one which is not subject to wild fluctuations in quantities or in prices, which do no good to anyone.
It may well be that we shall get these agreements voluntarily. I hope that we can. But powers are needed to ensure that if there are one or two recalcitrants we can say, "It will be for your good if you come along and agree with the rest of us, rather than force us to apply the sanctions which we have taken the power to apply".
We cannot afford to have a repetition of what happened in the first three or four months of this year over Argentine beef. We remember that because of the dock strike and other troubles in Argentina, in late 1962, there was a hold-over of beef which all came forward in the early months of 1963 and we got the extra load of Argentine beef pitched on to our market, quite regardless of what the market wanted and of the price levels which resulted. The blow was mainly felt by our own home cattle producers and, in turn, by our own taxpayers. We know that the House had to approve a Supplementary Estimate running into millions of pounds in order to make up to home producers the loss of market value which they suffered by reason of this off-loading of extra heavy supplies, unexpectedly and unrequired on to the market.
We have a voluntary agreement on supplies at the moment with the Argentine and that is working quite satisfactorily. But that agreement needs to be fortified and brought into line

with a whole chain of agreements to cover meat and other produce, so every supplier to the British market can feel confident that there will be stability and that for his share he will get a fair price.
Here at home we have to take our part in ensuring market stability. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) reminded us, we have to accept the principle of standard quantities applied to home production. We have to stake our claim as to how much of our own home market we shall be able to supply in a reasonably economic way and how much will be left for overseas suppliers. How that is divided up among them is a different matter. I presume that that will be dealt with by the Board of Trade. But how much do we expect to enjoy on our own home market. What is the extent of the claim which we shall stake?
We shall have to tie this up very closely, much more closely than we have ever been able to do before. Whether we have commissions, marketing boards, or some other form of marketing institution, we must regularise and phase properly the supplies of home killed meat coming forward month by month. It would be foolish to guess what the arrangements may be until we have had the recommendations of the Verdon Smith Committee, as the hon. Member for Workington said, but, clearly, we must develop marketing institutions to look after our side of the shared market and so be sure that we have a proper channel for, and satisfactory means of regulating and developing, our share.
I was glad to hear from the hon. Member for Workington that the principle of standard quantities being applied to home production is accepted by the Labour Party as an essential contribution which we in this country must make to a stable market, and, indeed, must make if we want to make sense of international commodity agreements or any working together with other countries. We as Members of Parliament must fully accept that, if we mean to go into international agreements with stabilising arrangements for our home market, we must set a target and stake a claim for our own agriculture while, at the same time, being sure that our agriculture is capable of meeting it.
What we can do, or what we can properly expect to be done, will vary a great deal with each product. We should like to see the targets set as high as possible, of course. For bacon we know that, at least for the coming year, that 36 per cent. is accepted as the proper share for British agriculture to contribute towards total bacon supply. It is less than the Danes will produce, but they concentrate on that market, and we have the pork market as well. For lamb, I suppose that our proportion might work out at nearer 50 per cent. For beef, it should work out at above 70 per cent.
In my view, we ought to set our sights fairly high, particularly for beef. I notice from the Ministry of Agriculture's annual returns, last June, that we have more beef cattle though fewer dairy cattle in this country now than we had the year before. This means that we have in the pipeline, so to speak, the potential and, indeed, the certainty of extra beef coming from our own pastures and cattle yards. We want to see full encouragement being given to the further expansion of beef production in this country, partly because it suits our farming and partly because world supplies of beef, at least for the next few years, are far from certain. We have had our recent experience with the Argentine—a hold-up for some months and then an overloading of the market. Australia is not so much interested in supplying Britain of late, but is more interested in supplying the United States.
It seems to me that when we think about import controls and the share which British agriculture is to have allocated in this our home market, we must follow the course of deliberately encouraging expansion in certain lines of production. I believe this to be true, particulary in regard to beef. It will be what the market will want and what consumers will appreciate. Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend to be fully robust when he comes to discuss these market sharing arrangements and to be quite sure that we do not restrict in any way our home production of those foods which we really can produce superbly well and of which supplies from abroad are uncertain. Beef is certainly one of them.

Mr. Fell: A moment or two ago, my hon. Friend said that Australia seemed

to be not very interested in supplying us but to be more interested in supplying America. Would it not be fair to add the reasons why Australia has become more interested in supplying America?

Sir A. Hurd: Australia has become more interested in other directions because she gets a better price for her beef in the United States than she does here.

Mr. Fell: That is not a bad reason.

Sir A. Hurd: It is the reason.

Mr. Fell: Not the only reason.

Sir A. Hurd: There is no other reason that I know of. Australia is also seeking markets in the Far East and, very wisely, sending some low-quality beef to Italy and other places. Facing the facts of the situation, we should foster and make full allowance for further expansion in certain lines of home production, of which I instance beef as one.
I hope that, as we work out these market shares—it will not be easy—we shall have not only the understanding of Ministers and Members of Parliament who realise that there is a good deal of cross-play of interests to be resolved between different countries, but also the understanding of our farmers that they are undertaking a responsibility to fill a definite share of the market. Our farmers should realise that it is in their interest to fill this share regularly and, we hope, justify a still bigger share in the years ahead. It would be folly to leave the market open to haphazard supplies from home production no less than from overseas. We must arrange that the total supply is not only right in quantity, but is suitably phased through the year so that the consumer, the housewife, may appreciate that her food supplies are assured and she will not pay any considerably greater price. Indeed, she and her husband, as taxpayers, will probably be paying a smaller price under these new arrangements than they have recently been paying in support of British agriculture.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: In a notable interjection earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) advised the Minister that


Joseph, thousands of years ago, had an answer to his problem. I seem to remember that, in implementing his storage policy, Joseph was moved by the expectation of seven lean years. With a General Election in the offing, I am not quite sure what the hon. Member for Leek had in mind.
As has been said by several hon. Members, the Bill marks a very important development in our agriculture policy. For years, we have been the only free food import country, not just in Europe but in the world. During the past few years, there has developed in Western countries an excess of food production over demand. We have to face the facts, and, in the absence of any adequate world plan for distributing surplus food production to the countries which really need it—the under-developed countries which cannot afford to buy through normal trade channels because of their lack of financial resources—it is inevitable that the great food producing countries should look for a market for their surpluses in the one free food importing country left in the world.
There have been those of us who, for years, have argued that it is impossible for this country to remain the only free food market in the world. It is of great significance that probably the greatest advocate of a free market economy in the Western world is the Federal Chancellor of West Germany, Dr. Erhard, but he has never advocated, so far as I know, a free market economy in food supplies, having regard to present world conditions.
If we had pursued the policy hitherto followed in Britain, our agriculture would eventually have been ruined or the subsidy bill would have grown out of all proportion

Mr. Frank Tomney (Hammersmith, North): It is out of all proportion now.

Mr. Hooson: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. Do I understand that the Labour Party, if returned to power, would reduce it?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Silence.

Mr. Hooson: This Bill is the acknowledgment of the rightness of the view which I have held in common with

many other people. I belong to a traditionally free trade party. I am a firm believer in a free market economy. Nevertheless, we believe that it is necessary to have a managed market in agriculture, and the Bill marks the end of the Government's long proclaimed policy of allowing free imports of food into this country and compensating the farmer for his price by subsidies alone.
In spite of what was said in the 1959 General Election, and since, by hon. Members opposite, the Government have now had to acknowledge that free imports of food and subsidies, without anything more, is just not workable in present world conditions. Therefore, in so far as the Bill means that the Government have come nearer to the Liberal point of view, and marks a step in the direction of a managed agricultural market, it is to be welcomed.
I understand from figures supplied by the Board of Trade that our trade balance with our traditional temperate food supply countries has increased heavily during the past year. We now have a very adverse trade balance with Canada, Denmark, Holland, New Zealand and the Argentine. I think that the only exception is Australia, in which case the trade balance is in our favour.
With this background I had thought that it might be possible that the Government's policy would change. I was, perhaps, encouraged in this view by what the Prime Minister said in his speech in the debate on the Address on 12th November. He said:
…the producer should have the prospect of adding to his income by increasing his efficiency and producing more."—[Official Report, 12th November, 1963; Vol. 684, c. 45.]
The experience of most farmers in this country over the past few years has been that the more efficient they have become, and the more they have consequently produced, the less has been their return from the market because the price of their products has been lowered. Yet the Prime Minister was suggesting that the producer must have the prospect of improving his income by producing more.
How does this fit in with the concept of standard quantities? I gathered from the Minister of Agriculture that he was


anxious that, in the case of many commodities, this country should not produce more than a given proportion of the market. I understand that this is also the attitude of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), who spoke on behalf of the Opposition. I have never made any secret of the fact that I do not accept this concept of standard quantities for British agriculture. However, be that as it may, is there now to be a change in this policy? What did the Prime Minister mean by advocating that producers should become more efficient and produce more to increase their income? Is there to be any greater increase than a pro rata increase with the increase in population? The level of the standard quantities for home producers? If the Government are sticking to this concept, i.e. of standard quantities, as I gather they are, is there not a strong case for increasing the proportion of the home producer each year, say, by 4 per cent., which is the desired rate of national growth advocated by N.E.D.C.? If they do not believe in increasing the proportion of the market available to the home producer, why not?
I entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) when, in an interjection, he said that it was essential for the home producer to have a larger share of the home market.

Mr. Prior: We on this side want to see the home producer having a larger share of the market, but the difficulty that we are in, and which the Liberal Party has not yet thought out, is how to obtain the import control that the Liberal Party requires and, at the same time, to honour the trade obligations which we have throughout the world. It is no good saying, as the hon. and learned Member would say, that we will not accept any restrictions on food production at home when that means, in effect, that we would not get agreement on controlling imports that we need.

Mr. Hooson: If this country had taken a lead, as we have advocated for a long time, in getting world commodity agreements, this would have helped an enormous amount. We would certainlyrely on a managed agriculture market. We should have to achieve it by phased progress, as is the case with the European Economic Community.
The Minister has maintained that the object of the minimum import prices and levies allowable under Clause 1 is not to maintain the home price level and that their sole purpose is to put a floor in the market in the event of certain glut periods. If that is so, do I understand that it is not the Government's intention to reduce the rate of subsidies below the present level, which is running it £360 million per annum? Can the Minister say at what level he expects his import levies to protect the market? I should have thought that, if not in the first year, certainly in subsequent years, minimum import prices and levies were intended to provide part of the support price for the home producer by affording him protection, part of the support price virtually coming from the protected price at the frontier, the other part coming from the subsidy. What percentage is intended to come from import control measures and what percentage from subsidies?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: rose—

Mr. Hooson: I hope that the hon. Member will forgive me if I do not give way. We have listened to several Conservative speeches and will listen to several more. I do not intend to allow the sole Liberal speech to be punctuated by Conservative speeches.
It is not enough for the Government to generalise and simply to state the principles upon which they will work. At this state, we are surely entitled to much more detailed information on this matter. Can the Minister tell us the commodities which he has in mind to which he intends these import control proposals to apply? He has referred to cereals. Will they apply only to cereals? Suppose we do not succeed in achieving agreement on meat supplies by quotas from abroad. Will these proposals apply to meat in that event? Is it intended in the foreseeable future to apply them to horticultural products, and, if so, which horticultural products?
I should like to know how much the Minister proposes to rely on prescribing minimum import price levels, since, as the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) pointed out in an interjection in the Minister's speech, the Government certainly burnt their fingers over Russian barley. The Russians were supplying us


with barley at £17 a ton. In response to a perfectly proper anti-dumping request, the Minister asked the Russians and other suppliers not to sell barley to this country at less than £20 a ton. The delighted Russians and other suppliers simply chalked up their invoices by £3 a ton and they had the benefit of the £3 per ton difference in price.
This is what I understand will happen with the proposal for a minimum import price, which is something different from a levy. Surely the Minister would agree that it is preferable to have a levy, whereby the benefits of the price at the frontier go to the taxpayers rather than to the suppliers who are prepared to supply at a much lower price.
May I pose this example? Suppose that an importing firm in this country has a subsidiary in Australia and it buys wheat in Australia at £16 a ton, and sells it to the principal firm over here at £20 a ton, which is, say, the minimum fixed import price for wheat. That firm is making a killing of £4 a ton. That is bound to happen under the fixed minimum import price. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that a levy is much more preferable—

Mr. John Farr: Clause 1(2) of the Bill says that Her Majesty's Government will have power to charge a levy.

Mr. Hooson: Of course. I asked a question of the Minister. Of course the Clause provides for levies or a minimum import price.

Mr. Farr: The hon. and learned Member is continually—

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. and learned Member who is speaking does not give way, the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) must not attempt to interrupt.

Mr. Hooson: Would not the Minister agree, from his experience, that minimum import price levels are the worst form of protection for this country and that levies, where they can be applied, are much preferable? There may be objections from G.A.T.T. to levies, but our experience is that with a minimum price import level it is the exporter to this country who benefits and not our country.
Before I leave Clause 1, I should like enlightenment from the Minister on subsection (3, a), under which
the Minister may by order provide for the granting…of allowances or reliefs in respect of the levy (if any) chargeable on the imported commodity.
What exactly does this mean? Is the allowance or relief to be granted to the importing merchant in this country, to the exporting merchant in the exporting country or to the country of export? This is not clear from the Bill.
The Minister has said that the objective of the horticultural proposals of the Bill is to make our home industry more efficient to meet greater competition from abroad. The question is, will it make the industry more efficient? I believe that the answer is largely "No". The grower is to have available £24 million in grants, rising, possibly, to £27 million. We must, however, be realistic. In 1960, £8 million was made available in grants to horticultural producers. Only £2½ million of this sum has been taken up.
The grower still has to find two-thirds of the cost, he often has to borrow it and invariably he has to pay more for the project. It is the contractors who will benefit most from this proposal. In the light of the experience of the taking up of the money that was made available for horticultural producers in 1960, I shall be surprised if more than one-quarter of the £24 million is taken up.
What the industry has asked for and lays emphasis upon is an increased grant for the grubbing-out of derelict orchards. Apart from a minor proposal to extend grant to farms with orchards, nothing has been done to meet this wish. Surely, the cost of an increased grant for grubbing-out orchards could come out of the £24 million. This would enormously assist the efficient grower, who sees the markets cluttered up with poor-quality produce from obsolete orchards which should have been grubbed out years ago. An imaginative incentive in this direction from the Ministry would be a worth while project, but nothing is being done.
I ask the Minister, why not a 100 per cent. grant for grubbing out the orchards? This would be of great benefit to the country. However efficient our apple growers, for example,


become, I understand that even with efficient production, the yield of the favourite apple in this country—the Cox's Orange Pippin—is about 250 bushels per acre. The continental varieties—I forget their exact names, but "Golden Delicious" is one of the varieties—have an average yield of about 1,000 bushels per acre. No amount of increased efficiency by our producers can change this ratio very much. It would be to the benefit of the country if many of the old orchards were grubbed out and were replanted, not with trees but with other crops.
The grading proposals in the Bill are also inadequate. There is no mention of a minimum grade, for which the industry has been asking. Instead, there is to be the imposition of an arbitrary quality grade, which will not even be statutory at the point of retail sale. The Minister made great play of the protection which is given to consumers. I do not think that there will be any protection to consumers in this respect, because a retailer can buy the graded fruit, he can mix them up with other fruit and there is no obligation, under the Bill, for the retailer to sell in his shop at the grade that he has purchased.

Mr. Soames: What advantage does the hon. and learned Member think that a retailer would gain from buying graded produce and then, after all the trouble which has been taken to grade it, mixing it up?

Mr. Hooson: That is what retailers do. Some fruit can be bought cheaply and then it is mixed up. For example, if every 1 lb. of apples contained three properly graded apples and one from a cheap ungraded source, an extra profit could be made by retailers. If the consumer is really to benefit, the protection must be extended to the point of retail sale. How can the industry, as an industry, advertise graded apples when there is no guarantee that the shop keeper will conform to the grades at which he has purchased them?
The whole proposals are inadequate to meet the needs of the industry. I do not dispute that many of the proposals in the Bill will be of benefit to the industry, but a bold grubbing-out plan, a workable grading scheme and an assured share of the market are things

the growers really need. The Bill does not provide any of these.
A good deal has been said during the debate about the price to the consumer. I regret that there is no sign in the Bill, as in any of the previous Agriculture Acts, of any effort to bring down the distributive costs on the price of food. The distributive cost takes quite a proportion of the price of food which is eventually paid for by the consumer. Nor is there any sign of a determined attack on the costs of farmers' requisites. In 1960, for example, the Monopolies Commission condemned Fisons for acting against the public interest by overcharging farmers for subsidised and tariff-protected fertilisers.
What steps have the Government taken to remedy this wrong? Have they taken any steps? All that has happened is that the Conservative Party has accepted a subsidy from Fisons. Not until we see signs that the Government are prepared to take firm action against monopolies and the cost of farmers' requisites can we believe that there is a determined effort to lower the price of food.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Norman Cole: I should like to add my meed of praise to my right hon. Friend the Minister for his courage in introducing the Bill, because it represents a revolutionary change in the importing side of agriculture. As my right hon. Friend said, it is a Bill to provide powers for the fixing of a minimum import price for cereals and also for other products and, if necessary, for imposing a levy.
My right hon. Friend said something more than that which is of great importance and which most of us recognise. The Bill facilitates the continuation of the present support system, to which we are all wedded and which was started in the Agriculture Act, 1947. He might have added that without something like a minimum import price or levy, it would very soon have been impossible to carry on the present system of support prices that functions in this country.
I support something that was said in an intervention by one of my hon. Friends when he said that our farmers must have a larger share of the market. Every hon. Member would agree with


that. Without the Bill, however, side by side with that great hope of a larger share would have been the worry that we would not be able by the open-end subsidy to support the increasing amount which was required in proportion to the increase which our own farmers would have of the market.
The farmers are aware of this. Certainly, over recent years, they have been concerned about the ever-mounting cost of this open-end figure, because they get whatever they obtain in that way through Government support only because they do not get it through the market. I am sure that many farmers would much sooner get it in an ordinary market price than have it necessarily in every case coming out of the Exchequer by support.
There are one or two questions I should like to ask my right hon. Friend about Clause 1 of the Bill which, as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) has said, is almost a Bill in itself. I am not quite clear whether there would be the same kind of minimum import price fixed for the various countries of origin. I imagine not. First, the Commonwealth countries, then the countries of the European Free Trade Association—the seven countries, including ourselves—then the countries who are in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and, lastly, foreign countries which are not in those previous categories.
One thing has been mentioned in this debate which will have to be thought about in the implementation of this part of the Bill and that is the importation at as low a level as possible of the feeding stuffs used by cattle producers in this country. We do not want to cut off our nose to spite our face. We want to make sure that the animal foodstuffs which it is so necessary for us to import at certain times of the year come in at as reasonable a price a possible.
I would also like to suggest to my right hon. Friend, although I expect that he has thought of it already, that quite a close supervision and, from that, speedy action would be needed by the Ministry to keep the minimum import price level of various products at the right figure from time to time,

especially in so far as it has to be done by an affirmative Resolution of Parliament.
This brings me to my next point. Leaving out for the moment the minimum import price, will there, in fact, be any Exchequer income at all arising from the imposition of the levy as distinct from the minimum import price? The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) gave an example of somebody importing a product into this country. I want to take that a step further. Whichever country of origin was considered, why should they allow one of their poducts to come to this country and for it to have a levy imposed upon it which will come to the British Exchequer when so far as the importer is concerned it will be exactly as if the country of origin had charged a higher price?
In other words, if the consignor receives £16 or £17 a ton and the levy is £3 a ton why should not the consignor in the country of origin charge £20 a ton and have the money in his own pocket? My right hon. Friend did not seem to think that there would be a very large Exchequer income from this. Indeed, I imagine this is not the main purpose of this part of the Bill, and with this I am entirely in support.
Finally, I do not think that it can be said too often that this new pattern will benefit all sections of the community. First, I think that it will make the farmer feel more certain of his position and that he will realise this is being tackled in the changing light of the import scene. Secondly, it will to some extent stop these continual Supplementary Estimates for dealing with the open-end subsidy, and, thirdly, I believe that it will lead to more stable prices to the consumers of agricultural products in this country. Side by side with the average consumer's objection to high prices is also the objection to fluctuating prices, and this stability will have a lot of virtue to commend it.
I turn to the other parts of the Bill, dealing with horticulture, which, with otherhon. Members, I feel has received far too little attention over the years in view of its importance as an industry. Although there have been examples in the Act of 1960 and even earlier, I think it is high time something was done financially to assist this important part of our


industry. I am glad to see there are to be grants for agricultural growers and agricultural co-operatives, of which I know something, both in regard to the co-operative markets and for working capital for them, and I am glad to see that for horticulture generally the Horticulture Improvement Scheme will be extended to the production side.
A special point which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend, and which is in the Bill, is the question of assistance for the smaller horticulturists to help them adapt their business to the up-to-date scene. This is most important and is side by side with the credit facilities which are particularly needed in horticulture. We heard a little while ago, from the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies), what it cost to gloss over an acre for horticultural purposes. This needs a great deal of credit or capital, and the Government's going on record as being behind the Agricultural Credit Corporation will be of great assistance.
This is a salutary time for this to be done in view of the number of horticultural holdings which are going out of production in this country, because in many cases it is found that the land is much more valuable for housing projects. All this is decreasing our horticultural production which many of us are sorry to see, and I hope that the Bill will give a shot in the arm to horticulture.
I notice, too, that there will be grants for municipal markets. I admire my right hon. Friend's optimism and hope that he is correct in thinking that over the course of 10 years about £75 million will be spent by the municipal authorities and that, of that, the Government will pay one-third, or £25 million. One of the troubles from which we suffer nowadays is not only the shortage of markets, but the fact that they are in the wrong places for many growers. In my constituency of South Bedfordshire I was talking to a grower who found it much more convenient, presumably both from the point of view of transport and price, to send his goods some distance to the north rather than in other directions. If we have more of these markets spread around it will help very much the convenience of growers and also in relation to the freshness, and the

price of produce, allowing for smaller transport costs.
On the matter of compulsory grading, my right hon. Friend referred to the fact that this would be started on apples and pears, tomatoes and cucumbers and possibly cauliflowers. Before he came to the second part of that statement it was going through my mind that I hoped he would not be too speedy in introducing this somewhat revolutionary pattern because we have not all that generally and really seriously taken up grading. However, I see now that he hopes that this will be carried out in the course of three years. I think that that is quite feasible. Side by side with grading I commend to his interest the fact of packaging. Some countries abroad have been very forward in this, and, indeed, there has been a definite start in this country. I hope that with compulsory grading we can read also the word "packaging", because as well as the quality of the goods there is the attractiveness to the purchaser.
Finally, I want to refer to the Bill in general. On a different note, I endorse what was said by the hon. Member for Workington in that it is astonishing that we are talking of restricting imports and of agricultural surpluses when two-thirds of the world, if not starving, has at least not enough food. There is certainly a case for a world food organisation, for this situation should not be tolerated in 1963.
I do not know the present figure of the value of the annual product of our agricultural and horticultural industries but the lest figure heard, some years ago, was £400 million. This has probably risen to half as much again and more by now. We must remember that all this represents essential produce which we must have to feed ourselves. If we did not have this produce, we should have to import all our food. This is, therefore, a contribution to our balance of payments of no small moment and the agricultural community can well be proud of it.
I hope that the Bill will help to make the value of that product even greater and give a fair deal to the consumer, to the farmer and the farm worker and bring more prosperity all round. This is a revolutionary Bill, but I do not


think that, in the changing pattern of life, that is necessarily a drawback. Indeed, it may well be a virtue. In agriculture today it certainly is a virtue. There are a number of proposals in the Bill which make a hybrid collection, but they all add up to a series of very important changes. I wish my right hon. Friend well and hope that the Bill reaches the Statute Book speedily.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Hilton: I, too, welcome the Bill, as I welcome any action taken by any Government to improve conditions in agriculture and horticulture, because the majority of my constituents, in one way or another, get their living from the land. I also welcome the Bill because it is designed to benefit the consumer as well. Unlike the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), I think that the Bill contains a good many things which will be beneficial, especially to the horticultural industry.
The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) referred to the value of the annual product of the agricultural and horticultural industries. If he checks up on the present figure he will find that it is about £1,800 million a year. He was very much out of date with the figures he quoted.

Mr. Cole: I pointed out that the last figure I heard on this was some years ago, when it was £400 million, but that I realised that it would be much more today.

Mr. Hilton: I give the Bill a welcome even although it has only come following the breakdown of the Common Market negotiations. I do not see why the Minister should be so touchy about that breakdown. We all knew each other's attitudes towards the Common Market. We knew his atitude. We know that, had we gone into the Common Market at that time, it would have meant the end for many small farmers in this country.

Mr. Hooson: Nonsense.

Mr. Hilton: The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery should know, as we all know, that this was the fate of hundreds of thousands of small farmers on the Continent whose coun-

tries joined the Common Market and that that fate would have been shared by our small farmers. There is no doubt about it.
There has been a change of attitude in the Minister. He and many of his colleagues have consistently denied that there was anything wrong in the agricultural and horticultural industries. Twice this year we have had deputations from farmers in Norfolk and other parts of the country to hon. Members. I tried to get the Minister to receive a deputation from Norfolk, but he refused. However, apparently he saw a deputation of N.F.U. members from Norfolk about three weeks ago, when his visitors pleaded for a new deal for agriculture.
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned today his belief that the Bill will give a new deal to agriculture and horticulture, because that is something that those of us representing rural constituencies are all very anxious to see. I do not want to say very much about Part I of the Bill, because I agree with what myhon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said—a number of other hon. Members wish to speak and I want to avoid repetition.
However, the proposals for horticulture will be very welcome. It is true that horticulture—in particular, its marketing and grading side—has been sadly neglected, and I am glad that the Bill will give grants to local authorities to build new markets and improve existing ones. This will help to bring new markets to the right places. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South pointed out that some markets are not situated in the right areas and I believe that these grants will help to a large extent to remedy this situation.
I also welcome the proposal for grants for grubbing orchards, for there are many neglected acres with very old trees which it is an expensive business to grub out. These grants will have the effect of bringing many acres of valuable land into good production.
We have fallen down in the grading of our produce very badly in the past. There is no doubt that the quality of our produce is as good as that of most other countries.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Often better.

Mr. Hilton: I do not disagree with that, but we have fallen down in the way in which we have presented our goods. I am glad that we are to introduce grading and that it is to be compulsory. I am sure that this is the only way to get growers to fall into line.
Now I want to talk about equipment, especially as it affects the smaller holding. I am all in favour of giving these grants and always have been. But very often the system has meant that the better-off farmer or horticulturist has been able to take advantage of the grants because he is in possession of money to put down in order to qualify for the Government grant. I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman made reference to the small farmer's position in this connection, and I hope that it will be made easier for the smaller man. The bigger man is often able to look after his own interests in this connection.
I hope that credit facilities will be made available at rates of interest which are not too high. There is no doubt that many small men are prevented from expanding as they wish by present high rates of interest. If the credit is made available and the rates are not too high, it will be welcome.
These proposals can make for a very efficient horticulture, which is what I and all hon. Members representing horticultural areas want to happen. The Minister said that his proposals would bring a new deal in horticulture and agriculture. This is wanted by all hon. Members, especially those on this side of the House. This is what our new statement on agriculture was all about. It ended by saying that we believed that our proposals would bring a new deal for all those engaged in agriculture.
The consumer, the farmer and the horticulturist have all been mentioned, but there is another partner in this important industry. He is the farm worker, the horticultural worker. These men have a splendid record, but the Bill is not likely to benefit them. I had hoped to see some way in which the proposals would benefit the farm worker. The Minister said that the Government's policy was the introduction of a cheap food policy. That is all very well, but the low wage of the farm worker contributes to the

cheapness of food in no uncertain way. No section of the community would wish to have cheap food at the expense of the farmer or horticulturist or the farm worker. I should like more co-operation between the Minister of Agriculture and other Ministers to achieve a new deal for the farm worker.
As well as having low wages, farm workers still have the tied-cottage system and can be turned out of their homes for all sorts of reasons. I know of one case in which a man is being turned out of his tied cottage because his son has left the farm for better paid employment. I should like the Minister of Agriculture to co-operate with the Minister of Housing and Local Government to introduce legislation and make that impossible
One of the most important things for the future of our agriculture and horticulture is education. At one time, when I was youngster, the important quality required of anyone wanting to work on a farm was brawn. If he was strong in the arm and thick in the head, he could make a good farm worker. But times have changed and the important quality now is net brawn, but brain. Those entering agriculture must now be trained in the new farming techniques, especially as the number of workers is declining every year. There are many promising farmers and farm workers in Norfolk. For example, there is the School of Agriculture, at Eastern, which is anxious to improve its facilities and train more youngsters.
If the Minister of Agriculture could get the co-operation of the Minister of Education and he, in turn, would allocate sufficient money to extend the School of Agriculture at Easton it would be possible to train very many more young people in the latest farming techniques, this, in turn, would help to achieve the new deal in agriculture.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I, too, welcome the Bill as a considerable step forward in the Government's policy for both agriculture and horticulture. My reservations concern not so much what is in the Bill as what is not, especially in connection with the schemes to be made under powers given by the Bill. The Horticulture Act, 1960, is no more


specific and I should be grateful if the Government could be more specific about the direction in which it is intended to use the powers conferred by the Bill in certain respects to which I shall draw attention later.
I should like to comment on a number of topics which have been mentioned already. The first is commodity agreements. It is easy to utter the phrase "commodity agreement", but it is extremely difficult to secure commodity agreements and to ensure that they work as intended. Any hon. Member who has followed the history of the international coffee agreement, for example, will have noticed that the high-quality producers are being squeezed more and more each year by the low-quality producers. More specifically, Brazil is being squeezed by Africa. The more prolific low-quality bean is ousting the high-quality bean.
To some extent there is an analogy with British agricultural products and imported agricultural products. The imported product tends to be not only cheaper, but inferior. Sometimes the inferior quality has the larger market because, while being inferior, it is consistent and in many cases both the market itself and those who buy from it prefer consistency to high quality. In many respects we already have high quality and it is the easier of the two tasks to get high quality by grading than to produce to a quality which we do not yet know how to meet. That is why I welcome the grading proposals so far as they go.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said that he had a strong preference for the levy system over the minimum import system. In theory, I agree, but, in practice, I am not so sure, because there are many grounds for saying that if we want to take a moral position of a fair return to our own producers, we cannot very well encourage overseas primary producers to sell their products at dumping rates. I would rather that producers throughout the world sold their products at a fair price than that they were encouraged to dump them and then pay the levy.
My agreement with the hon. and learned Member remains theoretical, but in practical terms there are some situa-

tions in which the levy is more practical. Certainly, in dealing with a Communist country I would much rather that the public had the benefit by importing absolutely the minimum quantity possible whether for good or bad reasons—and I hope only good—at the minimum price, than putting the largest possible levy on it. But for every other country with whom we enjoy better relations I can see a considerable case for saying that that quantity which we feel is just should come in at a fair price, of which the producer gets the benefit, rather than come in at what one might call a "sweated labour" price.
I turn now to specific provisions in the Bill. The tomato growing industry is one of the major sections of the horticultural industry, and I would be grateful if my hon. Friend would say whether one of the major ways of improving the efficiency of the tomato growing industry, namely, the replacement of obsolete glasshouse equipment, will or will not be covered by the grant provision, particularly that in Clause 6. It was partially for that reason that I referred to the Horticulture Act, 1960, for guidance, which alas I could not find. I take it that this information will be given in the details of the scheme.
To continue that line of thought, does Clause 6 merely put more money into the existing scheme, or does it broaden it? I thought that I understood earlier from my right hon. Friend that it was his intention to broaden the scheme to cover aspects which are not covered at the moment. An important one is this question of the efficiency of glass house construction, which, to a large extent, is a function of the date when it was constructed.
The British tomato growing industry will always have a natural disadvantage in that it does not get as many hours of sunshine, or sunshine of the same intensity, as some of its competitors, particularly those in Italy. It is therefore necessary that the technical standard of glasshouses in the British industry is to the latest specification. The profit margin in this industry is so low, and the yield per acre has to be so high to achieve any profit margin at all, that it is necessary for a grant of this kind to be made available to the growers.
I can appreciate some of the reasons why there should be an acreage limitation, although it seems a little inconsistent not to have an acreage limitation on farm improvement schemes, and yet to have one on horticulture improvement schemes, though I take it that the analogy would be between the Small Farmer Scheme and the small horticulturists scheme herein contained. The logic which I do not follow is that which allies an acreage of glass or horticulture to an acreage of farmland. The reason for that is not immediately apparent to me.
Whether or not a certain acreage of horticultural land is in need of, and would benefit from, a grant, I should have thought was independent of the number of completely dissociated agricultural acres which may constitute a holding. I think that it would be better if, when the scheme is drawn up—it is not in the Bill—the number of agricultural acres held were excluded from any relevance to inclusion in or extension from the small horticulturist scheme, if I may apply that term to it.
There are a number of important points to bear in mind when we consider standard quantities. It is not only the total amount of the standard quantity that matters. The steps down from, or beyond, that standard quantity which must also be considered, because, as one knows, even with the most careful management of an individual farm it is not possible to determine to the last unit of output what the total output will be in a given year because many of the influencing factors—primarily the weather—are beyond the wit of man to control, or accurately to predict, despite the latest attempts by the Meteorological Office.
Therefore, if, at the first step beyond the standard quantity, the drop in guarantee is such that the profit margin is reduced to nothing, or to a minus quantity, it cannot be regarded as a satisfactory form of guarantee. A guarantee is satisfactory only if it can be met by reasonable people acting with reasonable prudence, and excluding the effects of elements which are literally beyond the control of both the farming industry and the individual farmer.
A much fairer system is to say that at points of output beyond the standard

quantity the total sum of money, which is the product of the guaranteed price and the standard quantity, shall merely be divided by the greater output. That would, of course, result in a falling off of income to the producers. There would, therefore, be a definite discouragement and disincentive to them collectively to go beyond that point, but it would not reach the punitive conditions which a sharply stepped system can reach.
It is also necessary to ensure that the standard quantity increases each year, with the proviso that once saturation point is approached it would obviously be ridiculous to continue to increase it. But it is true to say that exhortations to greater efficiency mean exhortations to get a greater throughput for a given capital application, and that necessarily results in greater output.
In the past, when a standard quantity has been applied to a limited range of agricultural produce it has been possible for some producers to transfer a proportion, or all, of their output of one commodity to which a standard quantity has been applied to another line of production for which the standard quantity has not been applied. That is all very well so long as standard quantities are applied only to a restricted range of agricultural products. But if it is adopted as a concept right across the board, the first thing that happens is that it becomes ineffective as a means of persuading marginal producers, whose land is suitable for producing a number of different types of products, to switch from one product to the other. I think that we must consider the standard quantity system not only in terms of pure arithmetic, but in terms of practicability in an industry which does not practise an exact science. That is, and must be, the limitation applied to it.
I am glad that the Bill gives further positive encouragement to improvements in marketing. There is no doubt that the marketing conditions in this country are inadequate and unsatisfactory both for the producer and for the consumer. The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) rightly drew attention to the need, particularly when dealing with horticultural commodities, for a reliable means of transport from the producer to the wholesale market. We must emphasise not only the speed of the service, but its timing, so that the produce arrives in time


for each day's market. We must also emphasise the physical nature of the conveyance. The produce must be free from shocks which are likely to damage it. This is what I mean by a reliable and satisfactory transport service.
Lastly, in any system of agricultural support which involves a rolling average or an anticipation of annual output, when it becomes apparent—as it has this year—that the total pig production, for example, will be less than the Ministry forecast, that Ministry forecast must be adjusted, instead of the Ministry's living in a world which it must be quite obvious bears no relation to the reality which will be achieved. In other words, it is necessary that the predictive machinery shall be elastic enough to comprehend what has been happening in the months up to date in a given year. If my right hon. Friend looks at the pig subsidy this year he will find that the assumed annual rate of output is in excess and that, therefore, the stepped standard quantity payments are lower than they would be if the real out-turn were assumed now, instead of an excessively large out-turn.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing the Bill and on recognising—which it is not always easy to do publicly—that internal marketing and import conditions have changed significantly. It is true that we did not get into the Common Market. It is possible that there will not be a Common Market to get into in a year's time. The disruptive forces within the Common Market are at least as strong as the cohesive ones, and it is interesting to note that what is proving to be the greatest single disruptive force is the difficulty—a difficulty which the Minister and the House expected—of negotiating adequate safeguards for the agrciultural community which this House and the Government represent.
Although many of us were anxious to get into the Common Market on conditions which were adequate to safeguard British agriculture, at no time did we express certainty that those conditions would be capable of achievement. This is the point which the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) missed in his observations on the subject. It is one thing to express a determination to aim at a target, but it is both excessively immodest and unwise to express the con-

viction that one will hit it, especially if the target is being manipulated by a third party.
As I have said, I extend a welcome to the Bill, but I hope not only that it will undergo further elucidation through my right hon. Friend's winding-up speech tonight, but, if possible, that more will be written into it specifically in Committee, and less will be left in the form of schemes which are not subject to amendment during any stage of the Bill's passage through the House.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Oram: It is because the Bill contains important provisions for the improvement of horticultural marketing, especially by encouraging co-operative societies, and because it proposes to bring about compulsory grading, that I am prepared to support it. The warmth of my support, however, does not match that of many hon. Members who have already spoken from both sides of the House.
I welcome the provisions for encouraging co-operatives, and for grading, because they are ideas which hon. Members on this side of the House have consistently put forward for many years. We accept as flattery this additional imitation of our policies—a process of which we have been getting an increasing number of examples in the last few months. But there is a piece of imitation in the Bill which I find less pleasing. When I read the first few paragraphs of the Explanatory Memorandum and found that the Bill would give the Minister of Agriculture powers to set minimum import prices and to impose levies I was led immediately to think—as other hon. Members obviously were—of the Common Market.
Other hon. Members have made the point, but it is worth making again, that the Minister was particularly jumpy when my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) challenged him on the question whether there was some connection between the Bill and our previous attempts—and possibly our continuing attempts—to enter the Common Market.
It is not surprising that this point should have been brought out. Part I has not been thought up merely in the


last few weeks or months. Thought has been given to this question over the last two years—over the period when it was obvious that the Government were set upon taking us, almost at any cost, into the Common Market. In my view, the machinery set up under the Bill was intended, when first thought out, to be part of the means whereby this country would be hinged to the European Common Market.
I fully accept what the Minister said, namely, that the immediate motive for bringing it in, and—in his mind—the continuing value of this piece of machinery, was to provide for the drastic things that often occur in connection with deficiency payment schemes. That was no doubt the particular and immediate motive for the Bill, but it is not too extravagant to suggest that there is a direct connection between this piece of legislation and the negotiations for British entry into the Common Market.
I have some strong reservations about the central principle of Part I—the setting of minimum import prices and the raising of levies. I do not reject it out of hand, because it is only a piece of machinery, and we cannot judge it until we see the way in which it is used. The more important things for us to consider will be the Orders introduced under the powers proposed in the Bill. When those Orders are introduced the House will need to be particularly vigilant.
A great deal also depends on who will exercise the powers conferred by the Bill—what kind of Minister, and what kind of Ministry. I do not wish to discuss the question of the Government that will be in power. I merely wish to raise the question of the nature of the Ministry and Minister. As I indicated when I intervened in the Minister's speech, I believe that what is at stake here is the cost of living and the well-being of housewives. This machinery which is being set up and which will solve, or help to solve, the problem with which we are faced about the open-ended subsidy system, could provide a satisfactory floor on which the farming community might find security. The farmer could be happy; the taxpayer might get some relief. But it is my fear that as a result of the use of this

machinery the housewife may be called on to food the bill. When that sort of decision has to be made, I am not happy that the Minister who, in effect, makes the decision is a Minister almost entirely devoted to the interests of the farming community. That is the situation in respect of the present Minister of Agriculture.
Earlier the right hon. Gentleman was reminded that he is not only Minister of Agriculture but Minister of Fisheries and of Food. This is true, but I suggest that, although that is a nice balanced name, we have not got a nice balanced Ministry. If the activities of the present Ministry were analysed, we should find that in respect of nine out of ten of the decisions taken and of the conferences held and the memoranda produced, the Ministry had in mind the interests of the farming community and the agriculture industry. I make no complaint about that. It is the purpose of a Ministry of Agriculture.
I complain about the pretence that it is a balanced Ministry capable of weighing up the interests of the farming community and of the consumer and, in these vital questions of raising import levies, deciding what is the fair balance. I do not believe that we shall get the right sort of decision with this kind of Ministry. We need either a more balanced Ministry or—providing the right sort of countervailing power within the Cabinet—a Minister equally concerned with these powers and equally capable of influencing the way in which the powers are exercised; be it the President of the Board of Trade or a special Ministry constituted to look after the interests of the consumer. In some way some balance in the decision making is necessary. Only in such a situation, with that sort of Ministry reaching a decision in connection with the first part of the Bill, should I be at all happy.
There are one or two more detailed points in connection with the second and third parts of the Bill to which I wish to refer. First, in relation to Clause 4 where the principle of the one-third grant, one-third of the amount of the money required, has been brought forward from the 1960 Act, I wonder whether Sufficient thought has been


given to the difficulties faced by co-operative societies in raising the other two-thirds. The Minister referred to this, but he seemed to be referring—possibly the Bill is intended to refer-to working capital rather than to the provision of permanent or long-term capital. Here there will be a real difficulty for a group of horticulturists to be able to provide from their collective resources sufficient capital to meet the necessary two-thirds to set up a scheme under the Bill.
There are such things as the limitation under the Industrial Provident Societies Act to £1,000 share capital per member. There is the way in which the Profits Tax works adversely against the accumulation of funds by co-operative societies. We have debated these points on other occasions, but I notice that co-operative societies which have been stimulated by the 1960Act are registering under the Companies Act rather than under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. This shows a weakness in the financial aspects of the Bill, because these registrations are an endeavour to overcome the handicaps which the societies would face if they registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. If societies are forced to do that, it seems to me that it is not encouraging true co-operative methods in horticulture, and I hope that that point will be looked at.
I welcome the fact that in Clause 5 a secondary co-operative is to qualify for a grant. This, in my view, corrects a weakness in the 1960 Act under which it was only primary co-operatives which could qualify. But even under the provisions of the Bill the secondary co-operative, I understand, qualifies for a grant only in respect of "conducting a market". During the Committee stage discussions we shall have to explore exactly what the Minister has in mind in using that phrase. Why confine this to conducting a market? Why is it not proper for a secondary co operative society to engage in the construction of storage space or, for instance, in transport activities? If the principle is good and the need is manifest in respect of "conducting a market", it would seem equally necessary for there to be grants in respect of other spheres of the society's operation.
One important point which occurs to me from a constituency sense is in respect of Clause 9 which makes provision for grants for national markets. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington made a brief reference to the re-siting of Covent Garden Market. I am particularly interested in this, because I know that there is at least one proposal that Covent Garden market should be sited at Beckton in my constituency. There has been a report that that would be an ideal site and I shall be interested to know whether the Minister anticipates making a grant under the provisions of Clause 9 of this Bill for the transfer of Covent Garden Market in this way. It may appear that this is a good site, viewed from the Metropolitan angle and from the national angle. But I must warn the Minister that from the local point of view there are very important traffic, town-planning and housing problems associated with this project which will need very careful examination before any such scheme is undertaken.
These are among the points which, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington, we shall require to discuss during the Committee stage. On the whole our attitude to this Bill will be one of constructive criticism. There are a number of points on which we shall need a great deal more information and there are a number of ways in which, in my view, the provisions in the Bill could be strengthened. But these are matters to be dealt with at a later stage. My purpose in intervening in this debate is to call attention to what I consider very serious dangers, from the point of view of the consumer, which are inherent in the implementation of the provisions in Part I of the Bill. Unless we watch very closely the Orders which will be made under this Measure there are dangers that the Government—from their point of view quite sincerely—in seeking to protect the taxpayer from the ever-increasing burden of deficiency payments, and in attempting to give security to the farm community, may do so in a way which will transfer those burdens straight on to the backs of the house wives.

7.40 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: At this stage of the debate it may be some relief to my hon. Friends who wish


to speak to know that I shall be very brief indeed, and very parochial. The debate has shown that there is not only a wide measure of support for the Bill, but that almost every argument in support of it has been deployed from both sides of the House. I do not think that I need add to them except to say that it is obviously right that in present conditions we should now move away from the system of subsidies and seek new arrangements.
In Northern Ireland, we certainly approve what the first part of the Bill will do. I want, however, to say a word about the effect of the Bill on Northern Ireland. Sometimes, listening to debates in this House, one would imagine that Northern Ireland was primarily an industrial community. I ought to remind the House that, in fact, Northern Ireland is primarily an agricultural community. By any yardstick agriculture is our greatest and most important industry and it is in the true sense of the word vital to our very life.
Our agriculture is somewhat different from that which obtains in England in that our farms are very small indeed. I saw some figures this morning which might surprise my hon. Friends. Farmers on almost half our farms enjoy an income of less than £500 a year and almost a quarter of our farms provide an income of less than £300 a year. That is for various historical reasons. It is due primarily to the fact that our farmers are not tenant farmers but mostly own their land. Consequently, the move towards rationalisation and greater units is bound to be slow and to be resisted. A man does not like surrendering any part of the ownership of land which has been owned by his family for some time.
Our agriculture is not in a position to supply itself to any great degree with necessary feedingstuffs. In Northern Ireland, we can produce only about a fifth of the feedingstuffs we need and our agriculture is principally livestock feeding, pigs, poultry, eggs and milk. We are very dependent, therefore, on feedingstuffs. 'What is causing our people some anxiety is the question of the minimum import prices. We were certainly reassured when the Minister, moving the Second Reading, said that he did not expect the minimum import price to result in any appreciable rise in the cost

of imported feedingstuffs. But supposing the Minister's forecasts were falsified, and there were to be a rise in the minimum import price, that would have a peculiarly damaging effect in Northern Ireland, much more than in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The livestock producer in Britain can fail back to some extent on home-produced cereal, whereas the producer in Northern Ireland cannot do that. He has still to be an importer, if only from the rest of the United Kingdom, and faces the high cost of transport across the Irish Sea. It might be necessary in future, should the price of feedingstuffs rise, to seek some provision whereby we would have special treatment in this respect. We may have to return to this question in Committee. There is a precedent in our remoteness grant. It is a very respectable aid desirable precedent and one to which we would have no objection to being used again if necessary, although, of course, we hope that it will not. I should be grateful if the Minister—I believe it is to be the Secretary of State for Scotland—in winding-up the debate, will say something about this, because it is causing great concern.
I should like to tell my farming community something which is reassuring and if my right hon. Friend can give an assurance that, whatever may happen to the future of prices of imported cereals, at least machinery will be thought out to ensure that the cost of feedingstuffs in Northern Ireland shall not rise above that obtaining in the rest of the United Kingdom, I should be reasonably satisfied.

Mr. Peart: The hon. and gallant Member is making a very important point, which I raised in a general way. Surely he would still be concerned if the price of feedingstuffs rose because of the special characteristics of Northern Ireland agriculture. I thought that that was the case. Despite the argument whether the price would be the same as that in the rest of the United Kingdom, as it must inevitably be, in view of what he said, Northern Ireland would still be in difficulties.

Captain Orr: I was not concerned to make the general argument. I said at the beginning of my speech that I intended to be parochial and that I was


making a peculiarly parochial point. I see the force of the argument that care must be taken to see that in fixing the minimum import price we do not starve ourselves of the necessary feedingstuffs, or put the price of them too high for home producers. What I am concerned about is that, should there be any rise at all, Northern Ireland producers should not be at a disadvantage in comparison with those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
I think that the Government are right in leaving for decision by the Parliament of Northern Ireland the application of provisions for horticulture. The Bill allows the Parliament of Northern Ireland, notwithstanding anything in the Government of Northern Ireland Act, 1920, to follow the general pattern. What the Government here are doing in respect of horticulture is absolutely right. I hope that the Parliament in Northern Ireland will follow in line. It is not only a question of following. I cannot help making this point. Someone said that the question of compulsory grading of horticultural products was something new which had recently been thought up. In fact, the Government of Northern Ireland have insisted on grading of apples since 1931.
I believe that it was the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) who mentioned the Irish Republic. When my right hon. Friend replies to the debate I hope that he will tell us whether or not there are to be special arrangements about imports from the Irish Republic. From my reading of the Bill it seems that the Irish Republic is in precisely the same position as any other country from which we import. This question should be clarified and I should be grateful if the Minister will clarify it.

7.50 p.m.

Mr. Guy Barnett: Like the hon. Member for Down, South (Captain Orr), I do not intend to detain the House for long. I hope that he will excuse me if I do not comment at length on his remarks since, as he admitted, they were largely parochial in content and I regret to say that I have never visited Northern Ireland. I was interested in his comments on feeding stuffs, because my constituents are similarly worried about this matter.
At the beginning of his speech the hon. and gallant Member referred to the Government moving away from subsidy. I hope that he misinterpreted the words used by the Minister because as I listened to his right hon. Friend I got the impression that there was no intention of doing away with the deficiency payments system. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the intention of the Bill was to reinforce the system and enable it to remain in being, thus providing the means whereby the system could operate without the bill becoming bigger each year.
It is worth pointing out that there is a strong case for subsidy in agriculture. The Farmer and Stock-breeder stated in an editorial on 3rd December:
We agree fully with the principle of making both agriculture and horticulture as far as possible independent of support.
The article was commenting on the Bill. But it would be wrong for the general impression to get abroad—a wrong impression, I hope—that the aim of the Bill is first towards the disappearance of the agricultural subsidy. I believe that the subsidy is here to stay and that we will see it for many years to come. I also believe that it can be a good investment.
I use the words "can be" because a large proportion of the subsidy is going to places where it does the least good; for instance, part of it goes towards the monopolies, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) pointed out. Far too large a proportion of it goes to the large-scale producer who is capable of standing on his own feet. Too small a proportion goes to the small man.
Despite this, it is a good investment. I appreciate that in some ways it is unpopular with the farming community because it allows the impression to get around among those who know little about it that the industry is not efficient. It is highly efficient, as all hon. Members who represent farming constituencies know. It also tends to be unpopular with the taxpayer, for obvious reasons. We should, therefore, take every opportunity to say that it can and should provide for agricultural stability and efficiency, that in times when the terms of trade are moving strongly against us, which may happen again, it can prove


an excellent investment and that a subsidy should be capable of providing the industry with a fair return for the work that is done.
In his speech the Minister mentioned the 1947 Act and his desire to maintain its principles. It is worth remembering that in the opening words of that Act we read that its aims were to provide for the
…proper remuneration and living conditions for farmers and workers in agriculture and an adequate return on capital invested in the industry".
In a debate on a Bill of this kind, a Bill which has been described as the most important Measure on agriculture since the 1947 Act, it is worth remembering the principles underlining that Act.
Workers and farmers have not been keeping pace with the rising standards of prosperity throughout the community and hon. Members who represent constituencies in the South-West, where there is a large proportion of small farmers relying to a large extent on milk production, know that these small men face a serious situation. Beneath the surface there are signs of appalling poverty among some of the small farmers, who are having to rely on annually decreasing incomes. We know of the extreme annoyance that was felt by milk producers in the South-West after the Annual Price Review this year and we had an indication of how they feel about the tiny incomes they receive.
I was glad that one of my hon. Friends mentioned the plight of agricultural workers and the fact that their wages have not kept pace with those of industry generally. We need to tackle this problem, which is related to the whole business of supplying a reasonable subsidy to the agricultural industry and seeing that it goes where it can do the most good.
I was in Denmark a few months ago and learned with interest that even there they are finding it necessary to have an agricultural subsidy. This shows that there is nothing we need be ashamed of in giving one, so long as it goes to the right people. I mention the agricultural worker not merely because he should be given justice in terms of pay, but because he is becoming an increasingly skilled man and deserves a proper

monetary return for his skill. I also mention him because the efficiency of the industry depends on the standard of skill of the workers in it.
It has been pointed out that brains and not brawn are needed by the industry today. I could not agree more, mainly because of the increasing industrial opportunities that are becoming available in the rural areas and which will become more available in future. This is because the industry, with increasing mechanisation, will not be as dependent as it has been on human labour. It is only right, therefore, that other opportunities of employment should be available in the rural areas. If we provide these opportunities we will also be providing a counter-attraction for agricultural workers. Farmers are, naturally, worried about this, because they consider that it will draw their best men away into industry. They are worried, too, because they know that at present they cannot pay the kind of wages to enable them to compete with industries which moves into their areas.
I hope, therefore, that the Government will give their attention to the subject, because I do not get the impression from the Bill that it will provide for a rise in the standard of incomes throughout the agricultural industry and I believe that this is one of the essential factors. I admit that some of the provisions of the Bill will go in that direction, but something much more radical needs to be done for agriculture if it is to have the kind of return which it ought to receive for the work put in and the capital invested in it.
Part II of the Bill goes into methods of improving the horticultural industry and also improving marketing, which of course is an essential part of it. I am glad that reference has been made in the debate to the importance of transport in this respect. The improvement of transport facilities is as important as the improvement of market facilities in the areas. I hope that the Ministry of Agriculture will maintain close contact with the Ministry of Transport to ensure that in agricultural areas, and particularly where horticultural products are produced, adequate facilities are available for the transport of goods to market.
Like my hon. Friends, I welcome the Bill as a step in the right direction, but I do not think that the step goes far enough. Many points have been made from this side of the House emphasising serious deficiencies in the Bill, but as a step in the right direction I welcome it.

8.2 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: I trust that the hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Barnett) will forgive me if I do not follow him closely in his remarks. He said they were of a fairly parochial nature, perhaps especially concerned with the South-West.
Before dealing briefly with the Bill, I would like to refer to the comment of the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton) that he could not see a great deal in the Bill for farm workers. It is true that I can see no specific reference in it to the conditions of farm workers, but I feel that the hon. Member will recognise, as he always does in his sensible and good-humoured manner, that in the Bill the prosperity of farm workers is tied up with the prosperity of farmers and market gardeners.
We cannot have the one without the other, but I am sure that the improvements embodied in the Bill and the additional grants which will be made, especially to horticulture, will be reflected in better living, better working conditions and better machines and tools to handle for the farm worker and the market garden worker.
While I want to follow the Bill probably more closely than did the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart), I should like to refer to his remarks about the Common Market. As we look from this side of the Channel at what is happening in Europe, with the Common Market Six literally at sixes and sevens, and we compare the wrangling going on over the agricultural set-up of the Common Market nations with our own steady progress since our efforts to associate ourselves with them collapsed, I think we should thank our lucky stars that our efforts to enter into association with the Common Market ended when they did.
To deal in more detail with the Bill, welcome almost unreservedly Parts and III, both relating to horticulture.
Together, they will better enable horticulture to stand upon its own feet and meet the blasts of competition from wherever they come. I should like to know why retail sales are excluded from the arrangements for grading proposed in these two parts. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred in this interesting and constructive debate to the need to improve the standards of quality of vegetables and fruit produced in this country. I should have thought that the point at which improvement would be most felt would be in the retail trade. The housewife will go to the greengrocer and will see our non-graded vegetables and fruit on sale with foreign products which will be graded to a very high standard, and, of course, our home producers will suffer by the comparison.
I hope that when he replies to the debate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be able to tell us when he considers it likely that the first products for grading will be designated. I gather that grading will apply in the first place probably to apples, pears, tomatoes and cucumbers, but I should like to know when it is expected that the first of the grading orders will be made. I assume that it will take some time to train the necessary staff and establish the necessary organisation. I should much appreciate an answer on the point.
I commend the Parliamentary draftsmen on compressing into fewer than 100 lines in Part I words which are of such importance and significance to British agriculture. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree with the power that will be placed in the hands of the Ministry of Agriculture and that they believe it is a right and proper power for him to have. I only wish that he had been granted this power years ago. If he had possessed this facility for rapid action to counter foreign dumping it would have made a vast difference to the moneys which the Exchequer has had to find by way of deficiency payments.
The present machinery of the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1957, has proved, in practice, altogether too cumbersome and slow. This procedure has often resulted in the stable door being shut after the horse has gone. I


am pleased to see that the procedure laid down in the Bill should be capable of much easier and more rapid application.
I should like to know whether the consultation which the Bill says the Minister must have with the Treasury would be likely to be long or prolonged before he could make an Order relating to an import levy. Part I contains legislation which will fit into the future pattern of agriculture as envisaged by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture. It is a pattern which will involve home meat and cereal production fitting into the standard quantity concept. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this bold and far-seeing blueprint of which the Bill is the first and probably the most important part. I would emphasise particularly, as has been emphasised by hon. Members on both sides, that it is essential that home producers should have a chance to increase production.
I am encouraged by the statements made recently by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. They both said that they intended to see that our farmers, by increasing efficiency and producing more, would be allowed to share in the high standard of living which all sections of our community now enjoy and which, incidentally, during recent years, has far outstripped the standard of living of those engaged in the agricultural industry.
References have been made to the recent agreement which has been concluded on the importation of foreign bacon and ham to our home market. Hon. Members expressed approval of the 36.5 per cent. share of this market in bacon and ham which has been allotted, as a result of the agreement, to our own producers. I do not particularly like the idea that this pattern of agreement may perhaps be the herald for others. If one goes back only a few years, one sees that pattern of bacon and ham imports to this country was very different from what it is today. For instance, only eight years ago, the vast majority of bacon and ham consumed in this country was produced here. In fact, eight years ago, we consumed 240,000 tons of home-grown bacon and ham and Denmark exported only 220,000 tons.
In subsequent years, the pattern has radically changed. Home-grown production has declined and Danish production has soared upwards, and, suddenly, when we are at this unusual point in the pattern, when the Danish proportion of imports is very high in relation to home production, we crystallise the pattern at the present level of 36·5 per cent. for home producers and 63·5 per cent. of this trade for foreign producers. I should have liked to have known that our negotiators took cognisance of the fact when they reached this agreement with foreign importers recently that the position at the moment is unusual, that the demand for British or home-produced bacon and ham is improving in line with the producers' continually improved quality, and that in a few years there will have to be envisaged a possible return, once again, to a more familiar pattern of bacon and ham imports and home production than is the case at present.
In the Bill reference is made particularly to agricultural and horticultural workers elsewhere than in the United Kingdom, and I particularly welcome the few words included in Part I. I think that all of us have in mind producers in the Commonwealth, and particularly New Zealand dairy and mutton producers. We welcome their inclusion in any pattern to solve our own agricultural import problem.
We also welcome the inclusion of those nations, such as the E.F.T.A. nations and others, which are, perhaps, not engaged in any association with us other than being good trading companions who, in return for exporting to us many of the foods that we require, take from us many of the manufactured products that we export.
I suggest to my right hon. Friend that when he is face to face, as he will be fairly soon, with the difficulty, especially in election year, of meeting the demands of British farmers for a larger share in their own home market, and with the difficulty of wondering where the tonnage is to be obtained from, he should turn his attention to those nations which export a great deal of food to us and which do not import a great deal from us. Reference has been made to one or two nations in this debate and specifically to the Argentine, which I have particularly in mind.
During the past three years, our adverse trade balance with the Argentine has increased considerably. For instance, in 1961 we imported goods from the Argentine worth £24 million more than it imported from us. In 1962, the adverse balance increased to no less than £46 million and, what is really striking, during the first nine months of this year we imported from there goods worth no less than £53 million more than the Argentine imported from us.
I do not regard the Argentine as a particularly good trading customer on that basis. I understand that that country is having difficulty in meeting all its export obligations for meat. I understand that it exports to this country 200,000 to 220,000 tons of chilled beef annually. If it is having difficulty in meeting its export requirements, and we are having, or may be having difficulty in providing a market for our home-produced beef and meat, may I suggest to my right hon. Friend that there is a fairly obvious solution there which will be to the satisfaction of both parties. With these few reservations, I give a very warm and general welcome to the Bill.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I apologise for not having been in the House for most of the debate but I have been occupied on Parliamentary business elsewhere in the building. My remarks will be few, and they will be local, because they will be concerned with my native county of Cornwall and, in some part, with the constituency of Falmouth and Camborne which I have the honour to represent.
One point in the speech of the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) I noted with great interest. That was his plea to the Minister to make sure that something is done for the farmers in election year. I do not know whether this Bill was introduced with the General Election in mind, but the electorate will, no doubt, in due course, come to their own conclusions about that.

Mr. Farr: What I intended to say, and what I think Hansard will later show that I did say, was that it is always more difficult for any Government to forestall a demand from any organised body, whether the N.F.U. or

a trade union, when an election is imminent. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree with that.

Mr. Hayman: I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation of what he said.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who is present with us, will be aware of the difficulties of both agriculture and horticulture in Cornwall because we are so far away from the London Covent Garden Market and the great markets of the Midlands to which so much of our produce is sent. The county branch of the National Farmers' Union has asked me and, I think, other Cornish Members to emphasise the peculiar circumstances of the Cornish horticulture industry. For almost 30 years now, our horticulturists have had to rely to a great extent on tariffs. True, the tariffs have not been high, but they have helped the Cornish growers. The Government are now offering a grant of one-third of approved expenditure, but growers will be called upon to provide two-thirds.
At the end of, I think, about four years, tariffs may go altogether, and horticultural growers may well find themselves involved in very heavy capital expenditure but with an uncertain future for their industry. No doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary will make the position clear to Cornish farmers and horticulturists if I am wrong in that suggestion.
Whatever be the circumstances, no industry in the country deserves more encouragement and support from the Government and from the nation than do agriculture and horticulture. I become alarmed sometimes by the tendency to rely on tinned foods, and I wonder whether we shall one day be deprived of fresh vegetables altogether. In my view, a vegetable which is not fresh is hardly worth eating.
I am perturbed also, as the Parliamentary Secretary will know from Questions I have put to his Ministry from time to time, about the number of small farms and small farmers. From the figures which I am given, I am unable to find out whether the number of small farmers is decreasing or not. It seems that there is no differentiation in the Ministry's records between holdings, and it may well be, therefore, that


a fairly large farmer is farming four or five or even more holdings, some of which were once quite small. I could give instances of this from my own locality.
Problems of transport have already been raised. Cornwall is not exempt from the designs of Dr. Beeching and the Minister of Transport, but I am happy to say that I got from the divisional manager of the Western Region of British Railways a fortnight ago an assurance that the main railway line west of Plymouth will be maintained. Nobody above divisional manager level has given me that assurance, but I am thankful to have got even that. It will be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment that horticulturists in West Cornwall will be heavily handicapped if they are deprived of rail transport. What would happen in North Cornwall I do not quite know, but that is the Parliamentary Secretary's province, and, no doubt, he will do what he can to frustrate Dr. Beeching and the Minister of Transport in that part of our county.
The hon. Member for Harborough has already spoken about bacon and ham imports. There are two bacon factories in the town in which I live and which I represent. From time to time, in recent years, the affairs of both those factories have caused us a good deal of anxiety because they never seem to be able to know very far ahead what outlets there will be for their products. As in many other rural counties, the main products of Cornish agriculture in the past have been milk, eggs and pigs, and these are the staple products on which our farmers have relied. Whatever is done, those principal products must not be neglected in the future.
I fear that, if we come to rely on foreign countries for our food imports, sooner or later those countries will have a monopoly over us and will be able to wring the biggest price they can get out of our consumers. We spend enormous sums each year on defence, but what is the use of money spent on defence if we allow agriculture to fall by the wayside? We must have an efficient and prosperous agriculture not only for that reason but also for the well being and dignity of all the people who depend on the countryside

for their livelihood. There has been no finer sight since the war than the largely prosperous state of our country side which greets us almost everywhere. True, agriculture has had its slumps, and these have hit the individual farmer. It takes time for blows of that kind to show the full injury of their impact, but I hope that the Bill will go a long way to ensure prosperity in agriculture and in horticulture, not forgetting that horticulture has had a very chequered career in recent times. I very much hope that the pleas of Cornish horticulturists for a fair and square deal out of the Bill will be realised.

8.27 p.m.

Mr. Denys Bullard: I do not expect hon. Members to be present to hear my contribution to the debate, but I think that any student of economic history, looking at the attendance in this Chamber in the latter stages of this debate, might be surprised to know that the House of Commons is debating a matter affecting the importation of the staple foodstuff of the community, namely, wheat, about which there have been so many wrangles here in the past.
I believe that this is an epoch-making Bill. I warmly welcome its provisions, or, at any rate, most of them. Being a farmer, the House may be surprised to hear me say this, but I do not know that I should have welcomed the measures for restricting he importation of wheat and other commodities if I had not received the assurance from the Minister that the minimum import price was to be low and that its purpose was to do no more than fortify the guarantee arrangements which we have at present.
I wish to speak chiefly about horticulture. I wish first to ask one or two questions about the implications for horticulture of Part I of the Bill. We know that the primary purpose of Part I is to allow a levy to be put on the attempted importation of cereals at below the minimum import price. However, power is taken in Part I to extend the minimum import price provisions to horticulture as well as to agriculture.
I should welcome very much some indication as to whether my right hon. Friend intends to use these provisions horticulture. If he proposes to use them for horticulture—and I think that the


minimum import price mechanism could, with advantage, be used for some horticultural products—will they be used in place of the present tariff arrangements or in place of the anti-dumping provisions which, on the whole, have not worked out well for horticulture? It would be of advantage, especially when minimum grades have been established, if it were possible to use the minimum import price mechanism for horticulture as well as for agriculture.
If the minimum import price machinery is to be used for horticulture, would my right hon. Friend be prepared to use it on the threat arising of produce being dumped? This is a very important consideration. It would certainly be no use if my right hon. Friend came to the House and asked for an Order to impose a minimum price mechanism when dumping was taking place. Preparations would have to be made for it long before that. If this procedure is to be of any use to horticulture, very early steps will have to be taken if the mechanism is to be effective in replacing or supplementing the existing antidumping procedures.
In a way, the minimum import price system has been taken from the mechanisms operated by the European Economic Community. They have their—[An Hon. Member: "Sluice gates".]—sluice gates, as the hon. Member reminds me, and these are allied to the mechanism there used. But one of the features of their system is that, when undue imports threaten the horticultural economy of a member country, not only can that country impose levies but it can bring about a complete prohibition of entry until the market in the importing country has recovered. This, too, would be a very useful provision for horticulture under Part I of the Bill.
I should like to proceed to Part II, which adds to the grants for the improvement of horticultural holdings and marketing systems. It is very important that this part should be looked at in the light of the Minister's statement the other week about the future of the tariffs. I have always regarded the tariff as a rather good method of protecting horticulture, but the aim of the tariff is not to perpetuate differences in costs between production in this country and

elsewhere. The aim is that under the tariff shield there will be an improvement in horticultural methods and in efficiency. My view is that under the tariff protection, substantial improvements have taken place in horticulture.
Therefore, I warmly welcome what my right hon. Friend the Minister said in opening the debate—that it was certainly not intended to cut away the tariffs wholesale but that each case would be considered on its merits and certainly, as to the sensitive commodities, nothing would be done for at least four years and even then, when a case could still be substantiated, the tariffs would persist.
I welcome particularly the provisions for grant aid for the improvement of wholesale markets. There are doubts in the horticulture industry about the place that the wholesale markets will fill in the future. There has grown up an increasing practice of direct sales from the horticultural growers to the main retailers of produce. This tendency has increased especially with the growth of supermarkets and the like and there is a real difference of opinion among horticulturists about the rôle of the wholesale markets. I believe that they will always have their place.
From my experience, having looked at some of the markets on the Continent, together with hon. Friends of mine and some hon. Members opposite, I certainly support the thesis that if we improve the physical conditions in the main wholesale markets, we will also aid marketing methods. This is, therefore, a desirable thing to do in the Bill.
I am rather doubtful whether it would be possible to have a complete plan specifying which markets should be improved before a start is made. The correct thing is to make a start on improvements in some of the markets. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not be unduly deterred by what will, undoubtedly, be a considerable amount of bargaining and argument between the proprietors of markets in different parts of the country as to which one is or is not to receive help. I hope that the approach will be made from the standpoint of the good of the industry and that we will get a move on in improving at least some of the markets.

Mr. Harold Davies: The House always appreciates the expert knowledge that the hon. Member possesses, but I should like to raise a question concerning the horticulturist in many cases selling direct to places such as supermarkets. Whilst, I suppose, both the hon. Member and many of us on this side support that method, I wonder whether the hon. Member is rather worried about this other aspect. When the horticulturist becomes completely under the control of a large supermarket for his produce, he may later find that his price can be forced down by the supermarket buyer. It was found in the pottery industry, for instance, that when one great supermarket took all the teapots produced by a pottery, it forced down the price. We in this House should be aware of that possibility.

Mr. Bullard: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. That possibility exists. On the other hand, those who have had the benefit of making contracts with the large retailing firms have, on the whole, found this to be a better arrangement for their business than to take the risk of the market, which is very considerable. I must, however, admit that the risk to which the hon. Member referred exists.

Mr. Hayman: What my hon. Friend said applies also very much in industry. Very often, small industries are set up to cater for some of the big supermarkets and they then find that the supermarkets reduce the prices to the consumer at the expense of the small manufacturer, who has to take a severe loss.

Mr. Bullard: I am afraid that happens also, but one has to admit the fact of the growth of trade through the supermarkets and other big stores. If these sales are to increase, as the producer wants them to do, then that part of the shopping public which uses those large stores must be able to buy horticultural products there.
There is one further point on Part II of the Bill with which I should now like to deal. The Bill, quite rightly, makes important provision for encouraging growers' co-operative organisations and marketing through growers' co operative societies. I should like to point out that there are real difficulties

about setting up societies in some of the horticulture areas. This applies in the Fen district and South Lincolnshire, which is a varied horticultural area, and a very large one. I believe probably similar factors apply in Bedfordshire around my right hon. Friend's own constituent, if not actually within it. There every variety of horticultural product is grown, from the most delicate hothouse flowers and plants ranging right through the bulb industry to glass house vegetables, small vegetables and cabbages, brussels sprouts and early potatoes. It is not always easy to set up growers' co-operatives in areas such as those, where the product is so varied.
There is a further factor which adds to those difficulties. The larger growers who have direct connections of the kind I have just mentioned or who have efficient marketing channels through which to place their produce do not readily join in with the small growers in the setting up of co-operatives. Therefore, there is a conflict within the area. Hence, when difficulties arise about the finding of the necessary money to start a society, I hope that my right hon. Friend, in the allocation of grants for this purpose, will have regard to these problems and will give every possible encouragement, both financially and also by giving help through his officers, if that is possible.
I do not believe that co-operatives are the be all and end all of marketing. I think that some of the existing channels are very efficient, and I would certainly net like it to be thought that growers ought to be lectured too much about the absolute need to set up co-operatives. I believe that there are other channels which can be equally efficient, and I hope these will not go without encouragement.
Before I leave Part II of the Bill, I should like to thank my right hon. Friend for what he told me about his intention to extend the actual grants available to holders of horticultural holdings by a new scheme, presumably under the Horticulture Act, 1960. On reading the Explanatory Memorandum and the relevant Clause in Part II, it was not quite clear to me how he proposes to extend these grants, which I think are most necessary.


A large number of producers will, I think inevitably, remain outside co-operative marketing schemes, and if their tariffs are to be removed in due course it is necessary that, as individuals, they should have the benefit of help under the Bill. As far as I can see, this will be provided by an extension of the scheme under the Horticulture Act, 1960.
I can give a fairly broad welcome to Part III, concerning the intention to introduce minimum compulsory grades, but I have one or two important reservations. These are the same as those expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and concern the failure of the Bill—my right hon. Friend will probably say that it is inevitable—to carry grading beyond the wholesale stage into the retail section. Growers will feel very strongly about this.
If they are compelled to grade their produce to certain minimum standards they may not like it at first, but I think that, when they get accommodated to it, they will not dislike it as much as initially. Nevertheless, they will be very dismayed to find that the grades imposed on them do not find any reflection in grades in the shops.
There will be a further considerable disadvantage. It is possible to sell direct to a retailer ungraded produce, and there will be a great tendency to by-pass those agencies which specialise in packing and grading and thus remove trade from them in order to push it directly into the shops where no grading standards apply. I welcome the provisions for the grubbing of derelict orchards, and I believe that, in great measure, this will remove bad produce from the market. But I still think that producers will have a great grievance about this.
I know the difficulties in carrying compulsory grading still further into retailing and the difficulty of administration. I appreciate that it is a major difficulty but, in fairness to the producers, it should be overcome. Certainly, imported produce should carry the same restriction, so that even at the retail stage it will be shown that it conforms to a broad standard of grading.
I appreciate the grave administrative difficulties involved in grading in the retail section. I know also that produce which is above grade one day may be below it the next and that there are all sorts of other snags running through the horticulture industry. Nevertheless, there is an anomaly here which will be hard to justify to our producers. I hope that some step will be taken towards removing it.

Mr. George Darling: During the Committee stage of the Horticulture Act, 1960, a very constructive proposal to deal with this was put forward by the Opposition but the hon. Gentleman voted against it.

Mr. Bullard: I do not recall that, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman, who is so often wrong, was right on that occasion. If I did vote against the Opposition proposal I was probably convinced by the great difficulties of administering and policing any such measure, and I admit those difficulties now. I merely say that I hope we shall go into the matter still further this time and see whether we can improve on the suggestion of the Opposition in 1960.
I warmly welcome the vast majority of the Bill's provisions. It takes our agricultural and horticultural policy a great step further, and I am very pleased to be able to give it pretty well my wholehearted support.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. E. G. Willis: It is with some diffidence that I enter a debate on agriculture, but it is only right that at least one Scottish Member should take part in the debate.
The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) began by saying that this was an epoch-making Bill. It is so epoch-making that there are only six hon. Members on the back benches opposite.

Mr. Bullard: How many are there on the hon. Member's side?

Mr. Willis: It was not our side which said that it was an epoch-making Bill. We are treating it as we think it probably ought to be treated. It was the hon. Member who said that it was an epoch-making Bill.

Mr. Bullard: So it is.

Mr. Willis: There is not a Scottish Tory who thinks that it is sufficiently worth while even to grace the House with his presence.

Mr. Hayman: If my hon. Friend had been here half an hour ago, he would have seen only three back benchers opposite.

Mr. Willis: I am always very generous to the Government. That is my disposition.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to take advantage of his generosity and point out that only a short time ago no Scottish Socialist Members were in the Chamber?

Mr. Willis: We were rather busily engaged elsewhere, but at least two Scottish Socialists are now present and Scottish Socialists were present at the beginning of the debate, although I did not notice any Tory Scottish Members. I have spent the day commenting on the scarcity of Scottish Tory Members. I do not know where they are.
Putting this epoch-making Bill into effect will be a difficult operation, for it is to seek to control imports in a way which will assist the farmer and protect the Treasury. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) pointed out that the hon. Member for King's Lynn had changed his mind, that he had not voted for something at some time and was now taking a different view. But that is what the Government have done about exports. I remember numerous exchanges between the two Front Benches on the subject of controlling imports.

Mr. Bullard: There is nothing wrong about changing one's mind. I believe that the hon. Member was born in Norwich, but he now speaks for Edinburgh.

Mr. Willis: If the hon. Member paid me the courtesy of listening to all my speeches, he would find that I also speak for Norwich on occasions, while nevertheless still speaking for Edinburgh in the parliamentary sense. Of course, I have no objection to the hon. Member changing his mind, but he ought to have the grace to admit that he has accepted the very wise views expressed from these benches and to pay a tribute to this side

of the House for having put them forward.

Mr. George Lawson: If the hon. Gentleman changes his mind, ought he not to change his side of the House?

Mr. Willis: It is rather difficult to know, because the Government are changing their mind so rapidly nowadays that one is lot sure where they will end. I was only pointing out the changed speeches which I have heard today—I have not heard them all—

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: The hon. Gentleman has not heard any.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. I beard the opening speeches and I have been interested to observe the Government's changed attitude towards imports and their control. My hon. Friends will remember how the Tories condemned anything connected with the control of imports.
This is a very delicate operation, because it seems that the Government have to walk a tightrope in this connection. If they do not succeed in walking it, the result might be higher prices for the consumer. I have not heard much said today about the consumer, although a lot has been said about the producers. There are 50 million consumers in this country, and we ought to consider them. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will deal with this important point when winding up the debate.
We on this side of the House agree that it is necessary to give farmers certain gaurantees, but, if doing so means unnecessarily higher prices for the consumer, we shall have to thing very carefully about what we are doing.
I hope that the Minister will say something more about how he hopes to maintain the balance between what might be unnecessarily high prices, on the one hand, and, on the other, prices that are not high enough to give the farmer a guaranteed market, which is what he wants and lopes to get out of the Bill—an aim with which I am in 100 per cent. agreement.
I have a constituency interest in Part II of the Bill. As the Secretary of State knows, on the border of my constituency there is the eye of Scotland,


the most fertile part of Scotland, cultivated by a horticulturist whose name is a household word throughout the United Kingdom. This area lies on the boundaries of Musselburgh, which is the great leek-producing area of Scotland. Leeks represent one of the three Ls for which Musselburgh is famous. I shall not name the other two.
I agree with the additional assistance that is to be given to horticulture, but how much of this money will go to Scotland? According to the financial provisions of the Bill, about £24 million is to be spent under Clauses 2 to 5. I hope that the Minister will answer my question. We know what happened under the Horticulture Act. 1960.
I am interested, too, in the grants to be made towards the provision, rebuilding, or extension of major wholesale agricultural markets. We have the large Waverley Market in Edinburgh. For some time there has been talk about replacing it with a modern one which will cause much less congestion in the centre of the town. I presume that similar projects will be undertaken in other towns. Many of these markets are hopelessly out of date and cause tremendous traffic congestion. Anybody who has tried to get round Waverley Market and Waverley Bridge knows the enormous congestion that occurs in that area.
I am not certain how this grant will be made. If Waverley Market is rebuilt I assume that it will be done by the Edinburgh Corporation. According to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, the grant for such a purpose must not exceed one-third of the expenditure reasonably incurred. Surely that is rather a mean grant to give a local authority which wishes to replace an out-of-date horticultural market. The normal grant for local government expenditure is about 50 per cent., but in this case it is to be 33⅓ per cent.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give us some more information about this, and tell us whether what I have said about the grant is correct, and also whether, if Edinburgh Corporation rebuilds Waverley Market, it will receive a grant of only 33⅓ per cent. If so I can tell the right hon. Gentleman, who talks about this as an

epoch-making Bill, that Edinburgh Corporation—a Conservative body—will not see the Bill in the light. It will have some bitter things to say.
I agree, however, that we should try to improve standards and maintain them, not only in the wholesale but the retail sense, and with regard to horticultural produce from abroad.
I am glad to see that the Under-secretary has now resumed his seat. I read through the Bill carefully to see how much of his pamphlet, "The Land of Abundance", had found its way into it. I must tell him that I am disappointed to find very little of it in the Bill. I hope that he will plug away in the Scottish Office and that within a short time we shall begin to see some fruits of his efforts in another Bill, so that we can see this land of abundance, as produced by the Scottish Office under his guidance, as something more than a mere propaganda pamphlet.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison: I very much welcome the Bill and regard it as a logical stage in agricultural support in an era of abundance, in the same way as the 1947 Act—a very successful Act-seemed to be the logical stage in an era of shortage. There are, however, one or two points about the Bill in respect of which my right hon. Friend is likely to have some difficulty. If I may steal the phrase used by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), I think that my right hon. Friend will have to walk a tightrope. There is a lot of balancing to be done.
This is particularly so in the matter of negotiated quotas for imports. If we find that only limited quantities of our own products are encouraged as a quid pro quo for the introduction of quotas on imports from other countries, the agricultural community will eventually become very worried about the lid being held down on the kettle. Horticulturists may feel that whereas today they can switch from one product to another, if quotas are introduced there will be few products to which they can switch. This will present a great problem to my right hon. Friend, but with the skill that he has shown so far in negotiations I do not think that he will find it impossible to overcome.
That will be particularly so in the case of meat I wonder whether it is possible for my right hon. Friend to say how an agreement such as the Australia-New Zealand meat agreement will fit into the introduction of quotas. Will that seven-year agreement have to be re-negotiated?
I wish to make a plea. There is an overall plan to decide which markets are to receive this money so that they may be improved and modernised. From what is happening regarding the wholesaling and retailing pattern in horticulture goods today, unless there is much foresight and forward planning employed about markets we shall find that public funds will be wasted. In view of the lateness of the hour, I do not wish to say any more now, except to extend an enthusiastic welcome to the Bill both in respect of agriculture and horticulture. This is a Measure which has been adapted and adopted to meet the conditions of the present day. If properly administered, its provisions contain the possibility of giving a strong forward look to agriculture and horticulture in the next decade.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: We, also, enthusiastically welcome the conversion of the Minister to co-operative marketing, compulsory grading, special help for municipal and co-operative enterprise and other forms of Socialism in respect of horticulture and agriculture. Coming on top of the conversion of the Minister of Housing and Local Government to the nationalisation of land it shows what a powerful effect the fear of death can have, even on the minds of Tory Ministers. Such a mass conversion has not occurred since St. Paul went on his famous travels. But we are not at all so sure about the far-reaching powers for which the Minister asks in Clause 1.
The right hon. Gentleman gave a most misleading impression of what is contained in that most important single Clause in the Bill. He implied that only cereals and meat—exceedingly important as they are—were concerned and that he was proposing only to do something about cereals. But the Minister is asking for much more sweeping and epoch-making powers which are not confined to agriculture policy

or foodstuffs, but branch right out into the sphere of international trade and taxation policy. Clause 1 gives the Minister of Agriculture—he alone in most cases, but to some extent also in association with the Treasury—the power to prescribe minimum prices for a very large slice of this country's imports, and to levy what are, in fact, import texts on them of any amount he pleases on most of the essential foodstuffs consumed by the people of this country. The Minister may protest—this was his line today—that he intends to use these powers only in the most reasonable and modest fashion. But this House also has its rights, and must look not just at the intentions of the Minister, but the powers contained in the Bill, particularly as in this case we are concerted with the power of the Government, in effect, to levy taxes on the subject. If I am wrong in this respect no doubt the Secretary of State will contradict me. But I think that the Bill would enable the Minister of Agriculture not merely to hold up but to raise the price of the great bulk of the nation's imported foodstuffs and, incidentally, feeding stuffs. That is to say, not far off half the total foodstuffs and some important raw materials as well. Any robust use of these powers—the hon. Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd) called for a robust use of them—could exercise far-reaching effects on our international trade, on the cost of living and on our power to export.
The Bill also enables the Minister, with remarkably little parliamentary safeguard, to place levies—or, in plain English, indirect taxes—by statutory Order on all imported foodstuffs and a number of other materials. The Minister admitted today that these levies are paid in the first instance by the importer. I think that he would not deny that they would be passed on to the consumer. I think that there would be common ground between us on that. These powers could be used without any Finance Bill Committee stage, or old-fashioned apparatus of that kind, to shift the burden of taxation quite materially—indeed, sweepingly—from direct taxes to indirect taxes on to the consumer.
Of course, the Minister can do both, raise the prices and levy the taxes as


well. The quantities involved are very large indeed. Total United Kingdom imports of food in 1962 amounted to about £1,450 million. Although some foodstuffs—I take it that this is true of tea and coffee—which are not produced in this country will not be eligible, some raw materials, like wool and hides would be. A rise in the price of food imports of only 10 per cent. would lead to a rise in the cost of living of £300 million a year because home produce prices would rise at the same time. A levy of 20 per cent. on average on imported foodstuffs would also add about £300 million in indirect taxes on the consumer.
The Minister may protest that he does not intend to do anything of this kind, but we do not know what he intends to do, and he is taking powers to do all the things I have described. Now, under this Bill, he could go much further than that. We do not wholly—at least I do not—trust the Minister of Agriculture in this matter, first, because the Tory Party has always hankered for generations past for a dear food policy and shifting the tax burden on to the consumer, and, secondly, because the Minister seems to forget that he is supposed to be Minister of Food as well as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
I am a strong believer in a vigorous, prosperous and efficient agriculture. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) that, after the experience of two wars and the balance of payments crises we have had since the Second World War, any other policy would be extremely foolish. Incidentally, British agriculture now, partly as a result of the 1947 Act, is one of the most efficient in the world. I believe that in achieving this we should base ourselves mainly on the policies enshrined in the 1947 Agriculture Act, that is to say, guaranteed prices and subsidies, deficiency payments, if one likes, which benefit both the farming community which is still 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. of the population and the consumers, who are still 100 per cent. of it.
To depart from those principles and switch right over, on a robust scale—that is the word used today—to a policy

of food levies and restriction on supplies would be a disastrous mistake. The issue here is not whether agriculture should be sustained—I hope that everyone agrees with that—but whether it should be done by what I should call support, that is to say, guaranteed prices, subsidies and deficiency payments, or by what is better called protection, that is to say, the raising of import prices and the imposition of new taxes on the poorer consumers.
This is an issue of profound importance both for our internal policy and for the outside world. We on this side of the House say that a policy based mainly on subsidies and a fairly liberal import programme is far preferable to one based on food taxes and restrictions. I will give several reasons why this is so.

Mr. Prior: With such a liberal import policy how high would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to allow the subsidy bill to rise; £300 million, £400 million or even £500 million?

Mr. Jay: One cannot say, for one cannot give a fixed figure regardless of the year in question.
As I was saying, there are several reasons why this is so. First, any major changeover to a system of levies instead of deficiency payments is simply shifting the tax burden on to those less able to afford it. Of all taxes, the most regressive and unfair are those on food. They fall most heavily on the aged, large families and those living on small fixed incomes. Do not let us forget that when we talk of feedingstuffs the farmer is also a consumer.
Secondly, any policy pursued by forcing up food prices by levies or minimum prices at too high a level would raise the cost of living and could raise it gratuitously and unnecessarily. If Ministers contemplate any policy of that kind they should realise that certainly the wage earners and trade unions will not sit by and see the cost of living rise without taking steps to defend their standard of living. Such a policy would also mean a rise in money wages and would probably mean good-bye to any sort of incomes policy. That, in turn, would mean a rise in our export costs and a weakening of our power to export. It is seldom pointed out that deficiency


payments or food subsidies, are a most powerful form of export subsidy and are wholly consistent with G.A.T.T.
Thirdly, any policy which led to a rise in the price of imported food and raw materials must drive the terms of trade against this country. The Minister appeared to be aware of this danger in this speech. At least, he mentioned it. It is only the movement of the terms of trade in our favour that has enabled us to come near to achieving a balance in our overseas payments in the last seven years.
Since 1957, the terms of trade have moved nearly 20 per cent. in our favour, representing a bonus on our balance of payments of about £1,000 million a year. A rise of only 10 per cent. in food prices would add between £150 million and £200 million to our import bill and that would push us straight into deficit. Thus the House should not part with this subject without taking considerable note of it.
Nor should we assume too readily, as some hon. Members have been doing today, that world prices of food are now tending to fall. In 1963, they are not doing so and, apart from what the Government may intend to do by the Bill, the fact remains that world food prices are rising. I am sure that the Minister realises that the import prices of food coming to this country have risen by 12 per cent. since January, 1962, and the retail price of food in Britain has risen by 5 per cent. since then.
Nor should we assume, as some hon. Members have done today, that the world its still faced by these alleged unmanageable food surpluses and prospects of falling prices. Now that the Soviet Union, in addition to China and India, has come into the world cereals markets as a heavy buyer, it is possible that the picture could drastically change. At present, the world cereals surpluses are vanishing into Asia, but we do not know what will happen in the future. It seems possible, if not probable, that Russia will be a grain importer in normal years in the future and thus our difficulty might be to keep food prices down and not up. The whole spectacle of a British Minister, after the history of the last 15 years, trying to entice overseas producers to charge

more for what they sell to us is, from this point of view, extraordinary.
I hope that the Government and the Minister of Agriculture realise that terms of trade and balance of payments are the fundamental economic issues of this country, and that arrangements to vary the sin of deficiency payments or taxation necessary to pay for them are really a matter of internal transfer payments which may well be troublesome but which with courage and intelligence should be perfectly manageable. If we were to worsen basically our terms of trade in order to save an internal Budget bill, we would be guilty of extraordinary economic folly.
Fourthly, another danger in any robust use of these new instruments, about which we ought to hear something, is that it may provoke retaliation by some of our customers and possibly damage our exports, and particularly Commonwealth trade. We have the example here of the so-called "chicken war" between the Common Market and the United States, which was being provoked by precisely this type of food import levy erected round the Common Market. Would this weapon if used by us not be likely to provoke the same type of retaliation? Indeed, was it not agreed by all schools of thought during the Common Market controversy that a varying form of import levy was one of the most objectionable forms of protection?
The Government should realise that by their attitude in the Common Market negotiations last year they have already alienated many Commonwealth traders and lost us, for instance, aircraft and other contracts. We have to be careful that we do not push this process further by the unwise use of weapons of this kind. After all, it has been one of the great merits of British commercial policy up to now—I think the Minister would go with me this far—that we have followed a liberal import policy while the continent of Europe has followed a much more narrow protectionist policy ever since the eighteenth century.
I should have thought that our effort at this moment should be to try to persuade other countries to be as liberal as us, rather than that we should show any signs of reverting towards their


policies. Any unwise use of this excessive restrictive policy must damage the supplying countries as well as ourselves. Let us remember that the policy of deficiency payments or subsidies widens the world food market while a policy of import taxes and restrictions narrows it, and whatever else we do to help the poor countries we will not help to feed millions of underfed people by producing less food. We want to produce more. This is a point we should all do well to remember.
Fifthly, despite what the Minister said today, one wonders whether in all this the Government have been motivated not purely by the desire to improve this country's economic position, but the desire at some stage to join the Common Market on the sort of terms that we were discussing a year ago. The Minister got up today in a state of rather bovine indignation and flatly denied this. But if there is no truth in this why are the Government suddenly introducing this import levy policy at a moment when world food prices are rising? When the Minister of Agriculture denied this today, he did not seem to me to be aware that his colleague, the new Foreign Secretary, recently told Common Market Ministers privately at The Hague that this was the way in which Her Majesty's Government's policy was moving.
I must advise the right hon. Gentleman that at a meeting of the W.E.U. Assembly in Paris on 5th December, M. Rey, a member of the Commission of E.E.C., himself quoted our Foreign Secretary as having told representatives of the Six at The Hague that though the British Government had not yet abolished deficiency payments they were—and I quote my own translation:
in the course of introducing progressively the Common Market system of minimum prices at the economic frontier of the United Kingdom.
This comes very near to saying that we are moving over towards the agricultural policy of the Common Market. I do not know, and I do not accuse the Minister of Agriculture of deliberately concealing this important statement by the Foreign Secretary. He probably did not know. It is the normal state of muddle in which Government business is conducted.
But, quite apart from the general policy involved in the Bill, this Measure seems to me to be also open to the criticism as being much too sweeping in form and too casual in its attitude towards parliamentary control. First, it affects not only all agricultural and horticultural produce grown in the United Kingdom, including materials like hide and wool as well as food also, which nobody has pointed out—and I quote from Clause 1—it affects related products which are defined according to Clause 1(9) as meaning
any product of a description which is obtained from that produce or from any related product, with or without any process of manufacture, or is obtained by the use of that produce, or by that of any related product as a material, component or ingredient…
I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will tell me if I am wrong, because it is important to know what we are doing in the Bill, but this, presumably, would include woollen yarn, woollen cloth, made up woollen garments, leather, boots and shoes, or any other leather product.
But that is not the end of it. We are told by subsection (9,b) that included also is
any substance or article of a like nature or use to the product or to the related product".
Note the words "of like…use". Presumably, this would include any article of like use to woollen manufactures, that is, any textile materials whatever.
I should like to know whether that is what the Bill means, in the Minister's opinion. If he does mean that, why is it necessary to legislate so much more widely than was indicated by the intention he expressed today in his speech? So far as one can see, the Bill as it stands would give power to the Minister not merely to hold up the price but, incidentally, to impose levies on a wide range of industrial materials as well as foodstuffs, with very little control by the House. If it does not do that, will the Secretary of State tell us what is the meaning and purpose of the words in Clause 1(9) which I have read? If it does mean that, it seems to me to go indefensibly wide of any intention which the Minister expressed today.
This sort of loose drafting is all the more open to criticism when we observe that the definition of the commodities


concerned carries the right of the Minister to impose the levies. Therefore, a power of taxation is involved which seems to be entirely in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture. This taxation is to be imposed purely by Order, without any sort of Finance Bill, and, in a great many cases, as I understood the right hon. Gentleman today, not even an affirmative Resolution of the House is required.
As I understand the Bill, it is only to bring in a new commodity that an Order approved by affirmative Resolution is required. After that, the imposition of a tax on a commodity is merely the subject of an Order by way of negative Resolution, and, apparently, the decision thereafter to raise or lower the levy by any amount is not subject to any Parliamentary Resolution at all.
It is true that, for instance, the import duties chargeable under the Import Duties Act, and the anti-dumping duties, are imposed by the Board of Trade by means of Parliamentary Orders. But in all these cases it is not possible either to impose a new duty or to raise the duties without at least an affirmative Resolution of the House. It is very doubtful whether such powers as these should be placed in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture at all. I doubt whether such powers have ever been placed in the hands of any Department other than the Treasury and Customs and Excise or, in the case of import duties, the Board of Trade; and the Board of Trade, at least, is partly a consumer Department as well; and for its powers an affirmative Resolution is always necessary if taxation is being raised.
This is a point which the House will have to look at very narrowly in Committee, because it should not lightly surrender its control over these matters to any Government. Although the Minister himself may be blameless in his intentions, we do not know who the next Minister will be, or to whom we may be giving these powers. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] No, we do not know to whom we shall be giving these powers. I assure hon. Members that it is uncertain, and it is the duty of the House to scrutinise the powers which it grants without making any assumptions about who the Minister may be.
However, apart from these provisions in Part I, the Bill contains, in later parts, many improvements which we welcome. We shall not, of course, oppose the Bill, but we shall propose in Committee much greater safeguards by way of parliamentary control over the sweeping powers at present included in Part I. We shall try to bring the Bill rather more into conformity with the Minister's very modest speech today and the modest statement that he made to the House when introducing the policy. Until we have very much firmer assurances than we have yet had about how all this is to be operated, we shall be somewhat suspicious that the Government are still quietly trying to align their policies with those of the Common Market, and that, partly with that aim, they are seeking to impose a growing burden of food taxes, under the guise of import levies, on the British public.

9.33 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): It must have been a rather unusual experience for my right hon. Friend to hear, throughout the debate, steady praise for his Bill from all quarters of the House. I am sure that this is what he deserves because, otherwise, the praise would not have come quite so regularly from all parts.

Mr. Willis: It is the Secretary of State's Bill too, is it not?

Mr. Noble: I realise that there are several points which hon. Members have raised on which they would like answers, and I shall do my best to deal with as many of them as I can in the time available.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) stated, as is absolutely true, that Clause 1 gives the Minister of Agriculture very wide powers indeed. The implication which he put on paragraphs (a) and (b) in Clause 1(9) was certainly, in my view, an accurate one, but I think that the whole Clause needs reading in the light of its first sentence, which refers to
in the interest of maintaining in the United Kingdom a stable market for agricultural or horticultural produce…
That is what the Bill is about. I am sure that points will be made about it in Committee and the discussion can range there on how wide or narrow these


powers should be. However, I say seriously to the House that, in many of these affairs, it is often useful to have powers available rather than to have to bring in separate Bills for any new commodity which may come under strain.

Mr. Willis: Would the Secretary of State say why these powers are not given jointly to the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland? After all, the Secretary of State for Scotland is Scotland's Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. Noble: That is a point which I am sure the hon. Member will want to raise in Committee, and it can be discussed there. [Hon. Members: "Answer it now."]I was proposing to give a quick answer now. The great bulk of the problems come under the Orders which must be laid before the House. Some are subject to affirmative Resolution and others to negative Resolution. But in many cases action will need to be taken extremely quickly, and it was thought best that the power should be concentrated in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, with whom I am in very close touch.

Mr. Willis: We do not want him as Scotland's Minister.

Mr. Noble: Thehon. Gentleman asked whether I would like to explain my functions. If he has a week off, I am sure that somebody in my office will do his best for him.
Some point has been made about the sweeping nature of the powers and the possibility that new commodities could be put in. But under subsection (1) of Clause 1, if any new commodity—and my right hon. Friend has said that he is thinking only of cereals at the moment—was intended to be brought within the powers in Clause 1 it would have to come back to the House, and so would any alteration in minimum import levels.

Mr. Jay: When a commodity has come into the list, a levy of any level could be imposed without further having Orders.

Mr. Noble: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is right about that. If

he is, the matter can be dealt with in Committee.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Battersea, North that it is extremely important to maintain in this country a reasonable level of food prices. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) made it very clear that he realised that we had the cheapest food in Europe, largely due to the fact that we had been able to maintain a low food price by means of our guaranteed prices and deficiency payments, and so on.
The hon. Member for Workington also made it clear—I am a little doubtful whether the right hon. Member for Battersea, North took the point—that, in the light of conditions in the world today and the difference in the position of supplies of food, the system which worked well and not too expensively in previous years is now becoming extremely expensive. The hon. Member said very clearly that his party supported the policy of controlling imports and the policy of standard quantities. If that is so, I think that both sides of the House, with the possible exception of the Liberal Party, to which I will come in a moment, realise that the deficiency payments which worked well from 1947 until fairly recently perhaps need a complete overhaul.

Mr. Oram: rose—

Mr. Noble: I have a tremendous number of questions and points to answer. Perhaps I may carry on and if there is time at the end, the hon. Member can return to this point.
It is interesting that the Soviet Union and China should both now be coming into the world as buyers of cereals. This does not seem to me to give very great support to those who like fully Socialist systems with nationalisation of the land. [Interruption.] There may be other points in it, too, but I have a strong feeling that farmers are more efficient when farming their own land than when farming land belonging to the nation.

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that our tenant farmers do not farm the land well?

Mr. Noble: A lot of our tenant farmers farm the land brilliantly, but


not a very high proportion of tenant farmers are nationalised. [Interruption.] I am merely making a passing remark.

Mr. Willis: It is nonsense.

Mr. Noble: The hon. Member for Workington raised three points. He asked when the Verdon Smith Report was expected. My right hon. Friend said on Monday, I believe, that he hoped to get it by the end of this month and to publish it as soon thereafter as it could be printed. The hon. Member asked whether we had an idea of a regional plan for markets. I am not certain what concept the hon. Member has of a regional plan. At the moment, our belief is that the 20 or so major markets, if developed and improved, would be enough to start a satisfactory marketing scheme for the whole country. If, when this has taken place, more are needed, by all means let us consider the situation. The existing markets cover the market fairly well. The hon. Member asked whether we hoped to resurrect the Horticultural Marketing Council. We do not. On the other hand, we welcome the Joint Consultative Council which the industry has set up and which it is supporting.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) analysed very well many of the points that the right hon. Member for Battersea, North talked about, including the importance to us of terms of trade. He brought out a point which is significant in our discussions about surpluses and problems; that is, that often it is only 2 per cent. of the total amount of food which can break a market on the present system and that this 2 per cent. is not such as to have any serious effect on a rise or fall in food prices because it is a very small amount. Provided, as my right hon. Friend the Minister intends, that we keep the minimum import price at a low and sensible figure, I believe that we can keep our food prices reasonable, too.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford asked whether I would make clear that at the end of four years' time, the tariffs on sensitive items would not be removal.

Sir R. Nugent: I was referring particularly to horticulture.

Mr. Noble: I was thinking of horticulture and the sensitive items, which I do not think apply outside horticulture, although they may do. Our hope is that, as we will be spending £150 million on the horticultural industry, particularly with the idea of building up the competitive efficiency of that industry, after four years' time some of the items in the sensitive list may be able to compete fairly with produce from anywhere else in the world. I think that this is a reasonable hope but, if they do not, there is certainly no intention of removing them in their entirety at one sweep.
My right hon. Friend suggested that the structure of agricultural marketing needed a permanent body to look after it and to make certain that it developed well. My right hon. Friend has great experience of this as Chairman of AMDEC, and if in 18 months or so it looks as though a permanent body of some sort is needed, we shall consider it.
Then the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) spoke for his constituency, which I am glad to assure him is a non-sensitive item in the horticultural sense. He spoke with great courtesy to he Front Bench. He asked me what action the Government would take if growers decided to hold back supplies in the hope of getting a scarcity value from the shops. I do not think that this is a serious problem, because the vast majority of our horticultural produce is perishable and the holding back of supplies, except in a narrow field of commodities, is most unlikely.
I agree with him when he says that refrigerated foodstuffs are perhaps going out of favour, but I think that until we can be certain that vegetables and fruit are picked and delivered in a fresh condition a lot of the refrigerated food will find a market because it is so much easier to get good quality in that way. I think it is within the power of our horticultural industry, by making full use of market research and better methods of marketing, to defeat the refrigerating industry, if I may so refer to it briefly. However, I imagine that the firms which do a great deal of this refrigeration are a considerable help to the horticultural industry in taking up surpluses which might otherwise cause trouble on the market.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Sir A. Hurd) spoke very sensibly on the problem of standard quantities. He asked whether we could not in some way improve the phasing of our own supplies to the market as well as trying by agreement to phase supplies of imported cereals or meat. I think that our own farmers are doing a great deal, particularly in cereals, and of course it is much easier on the cereal side than on the meat side. He asked that we should be robust in doing these things and—without, I hope, causing any worry to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea, North—the Minister of Agriculture will certainly try to be robust.
Then the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), speaking from the Liberal benches, gave us a fairly good idea what the Liberal Party intend for us when they get into power. He asked me at first whether I would try to explain to him what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister meant by saying that farmers would increase their incomes both by their own efficiency and by producing more. I know how difficult it is for Liberals to attend here very much, but it has been said often in this House that there are two methods by which the farming community can produce more. They can produce a larger share of foodstuffs because the population is increasing and also because, as the population increases and as the standard of living rises, there is inevitably a greater demand for food. Our farmers already have, and increasingly will have in the future, a full share of the increases from both those ways.
The hon. and learned Gentleman explained that he did not like standard quantities but believed that we should increase output by 4 per cent. every year. This would be extremely difficult because, in some commodities—with liquid milk, pork, barley and eggs among them—we are already producing the maximum and we cannot guarantee that demand for them will increase every year by 4 per cent.
It is, therefore, a little difficult to think of that idea as a sensible policy for the long term, but when it comes to the problem of the managed market then we are in some trouble because, although he did not explain it, I felt

that what he hankered after was a Common Market managed market, letting the consumer pay the full price for the food.

Mr. Peart: That was what the right hon. Gentleman wanted.

Mr. Noble: Not at all. We were certainly prepared, in the context of getting considerable advantages—as we hoped and believed that we would—from the Common Market, to accept this as one of the disadvantages, but the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery is prepared to do it without any counterbalancing advantages. That is the significant difference between us.

Mr. Hooson: Do I understand, then, that it is not contemplated that the home producers' share of the market will be in any way increased, except by an increase in population and an increase, as it were, in taste? Will it not increase by demand?

Mr. Noble: It will increase in taste, demand and through a general rise in the standard of living. There are a number of ways in which it can be increased.
The hon. and learned Gentleman explained to the House the problem of the Russian barley, but that was the wrong illustration since the Russians did not sell us their barley on those terms.
The hon. and learned Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bullard) wanted to have grading in retail shops. This is obviously an attractive idea, but with 150,000 retail shops I think the House will realise how difficult it would be in practice.
I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to grub up all our orchards of Cox's Orange Pippins and rely on Delicious apples from abroad. Many people feel that we had better stick to high quality rather than go for quantity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) asked whether it would not be possible to divide the cereals brought in for feeding from those brought in for other purposes. This also would be administratively difficult to do because, at least in many grades, it would be possible to use cereals either for feedingstuffs or food.

Mr. Cole: I was reporting a remark made by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) to the effect that we did not want feedingstuffs to be increased in price. I do not mind which way the Government do it.

Mr. Noble: I accept that. I regret that I missed my hon. Friend's speech. He asked also whether there would be an income from the levy. That is difficult to answer. We hope, if we can arrange these things as we plan to do—by agreement—that there will be no levy.
The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton) also welcomed the Bill. I rather agree with him that the quality of our horticultural produce is very good but that the presentation of it has been poor. As he is not here, I will not follow him along the path to his tied house, except to say that I disagree with him from an entirely different horticultural standpoint in Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop)asked whether Clause 6 put more money into, or broadened, the existing scheme. As I understand the position, the 1960 legislation contains very wide powers, and the fact that we are putting in this extra money makes it easier to use those powers more freely and to use some which have not been used before. He asked whether we could use some of these powers to replace obsolete glass houses—and I am bound to admit that I misheard him and thought that he said—for the tomato throwing industry. They certainly come within the powers available.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) spoke about the problems of Northern Ireland. Speaking as a mere Scotsman, I have always felt that the farming community in Northern Ireland, although small, was quite incredibly efficient for its size. I am certain that it will maintain this efficiency and, whatever else happens, that the relative prices of feeding stuffs in Northern Ireland and this country will not in any way be worsened.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) asked why retail sales were excluded from compulsory grading. I think that I have already answered that. He asked whether the consultations with the Treasury mentioned in Clause 1(4) would take a great deal

of time and perhaps be too slow to work efficiently. My right hon. Friend is quite convinced that they will be very rapid. I agree with my hon. Friend that farmers must be given room to expand, and we believe that this is happening.
The hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) said that the Ministry of Agriculture leaned too heavily towards farmers and showed no sense of balance towards consumer interests. That is not a sustainable proposition, because, as has been said en both sides of the House, we have probably the best food in Europe at very low prices.
My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn asked whether we intended to use the minimum price arrangement for horticultural goods. At the moment, my right hon. Friend intends to use it only for cereals. I know only too well the difficulty of starting co-operatives in areas with very varied production. I have been interested in co-operative farming enterprises most of my life. I am certain that my right hon. Friend's officers will help in any way they can. I agree with my hon. Friends remarks about the difficulty of grading in retail shops.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis)—I was about to call him my hon. Friend; I see him so often—spoke, rather unusually, on horticulture. It took me about five seconds to remember the eye of Scotland, probably the best horticultural corner of the United Kingdom. I cannot tell the hon. Member how much of the grants will go to Scotland. We have a comparatively small, though very efficient, horticultural industry, and it remains to be seen how much it will need. The point about the Waverley Market is that one-third of the grant for that is sufficient for something which has grown to be a commercial enterprise and which it to be paid for by the people in the market and not put on the rates.
I welcome the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) and regret that time does not allow me to say more about them. The Bill is to be welcomed and I am confident that the House will want to give it a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings of the Committee of Ways and Means may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.]

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 88 (Money Committees).

[Sir ROBERT GRIMSTON in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for and in connection with the maintenance of minimum price levels for imports affecting the market for agricultural or horticultural produce of descriptions produced in the United Kingdom, to make further provision for assisting by the payment of grants the production and marketing of horticultural produce, and to impose requirements as to the grading, packing and transporting of horticultural produce (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), it is expedient to authorise—
A. The payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—
(a) expenses of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under provisions of the Act relating to minimum price levels for imports of any description, being expenses incurred by him on account of allowances or reliefs with respect to such minimum price levels or with respect to levies on imports imposed in connection therewith;
(b) expenses of the said Minister or the Secretary of State attributable to provisions of the Act extending the system of grants under Part I of the Horticulture Act 1960 by—
(i) enabling grants to be made for increasing the efficiency of a business comprising the growing of produce in the United Kingdom, or for clearing orchards, or
(ii) enabling grants to be made, in relation to a business comprising the storage, preparation for market or marketing of produce grown in the United Kingdom, for expanding, or increasing the efficiency of, the business, or for its initial operation, or for the provision of facilities for conducting a market in the course of the business, or
(iii) increasing the aggregate amount of the grants that may be made under the said Part I and enlarging the period within which they may be made,
being expenses which, so far as they consist of grants under the Act or any increase in grants under the said Part I, do not,

when taken with grants made apart from the Act under the said Part I, exceed twenty-seven million pounds in all;
(c) grants under the Act, not exceeding three hundred thousand pounds in any period of twelve months beginning on 1st April, in respect of expense incurred in connection with the giving of security for loans made for the purposes of any such business as is mentioned in paragraph (b) (i) or (ii) above;
(d) grants under the Act, not exceeding twenty-five million pounds in all, in respect of the provision, reconstruction or extension of any wholesale market of major importance in the national system of distribution of horticultural produce; and
(e) administrative expenses incurred by the said Minister or the Secretary of State under the Act and not comprised in the expenses referred to in paragraph (b) above.
B. The payment into the Exchequer of sums recovered by the said Minister or the Secretary of State in respect of grants made under the Act.—[Mr. Soames.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Sir ROBERT GRIMSTON in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURE (PRICE STABILISATION LEVIES)

Resolved,
That, if provision is made by an Act of the present Session for the maintenance of minimum price levels for imports affecting the market for agricultural or horticultural produce of descriptions produced in the United Kingdom, there may be charged on imports of any commodity to which this Resolution applies such levy as may be provided for by orders made under that Act with a view to maintaining, or to allowing for the effect of maintaining, a minimum price level for any such commodity; and there may also be charged in connection with applications for allowances or reliefs with respect to minimum price levels or levies under the Act such fees or other charges as may be provided for by or under the Act.
And this Resolution shall apply to commodities of any of the following descriptions, that is to say, to agricultural or horticultural produce of any description produced in the United Kingdom, to commodities of any description obtained from or by means of any commodity to which this Resolution applies, and to any substance or article of a like nature or use to any commodity to which this Resolution applies.—[Mr. Green.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received Tomorrow;

Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS (INCREASE)

10.3 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Alan Green): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Pensions (Increase) Acts (Extension) (No. 1) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 26th November.
I wish to detain the House for only a few moments to explain the reason for this and the following Order. The Orders are two parts of the same operation, and with permission, for the convenience of the House, perhaps I might explain their meaning jointly.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): If that is agreeable to the House, so be it.

Mr. Green: The Orders are required to correct drafting deficiencies in an Order made in 1944 extending the Pensions (Increase) Act of that year to various classes of pensions paid by local authorities. These pensions had been omitted from the Act because of the wide variety of pensions that are paid by local authorities.
The 1944 Order excluded pensions payable to the widows and dependants of two categories of pensions covered by that Order. As far as I have been able to discover, this was entirely inadvertent. The Order also omitted provision for pensions payable to the Clerk of the Peace for the County of London, his Deputy, and their dependants.
Subsequent Pensions (Increase) Acts have provided for their provisions to be applied to pensions covered by the 1944 Order, and these Orders extend the same series of Acts to these categories of pensions. Since different powers prescribing different procedures are concerned, two Orders are necessary. The No. 1 Order applies the 1944, 1952 and 1956 Acts, and the No. 2 Order the 1959 and 1962 Acts. Few pensions are involved, and the cost for individual local authorities will be trivial. Local authority associations have been consulted and they agree to the extensions made by these Orders.
Perhaps it would be helpful—I hope that it always is—to give a simple illustration of the type of person affected

by these Orders. They might well cover a case of a civil servant employed by the central Government and subsequently employed by a local authority. I am advised that without these Orders the continuity of his pension rights might be in doubt.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: Both Orders are acceptable to hon. Members en this side of the House. Both seem to do somebody some good and that is quite welcome even from this Government.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Pensions (Increase) Acts (Extension) (No. 1) Order 1963 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 26th November.

Address to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Pensions (Increase) Acts (Extension) (No. 2) Order 1963, dated 26th November, 1963 [draft laid before the House. 26th November], approved.—[Mr. Green.]

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to loans out of the Local Loans Fund, it is expedient to authorise—
(a) the remission of unpaid balances of principal and all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of any loans specified for that purpose in the said Act;
(b) any increase in the sums to be issued out of the Consolidated Fund or in the moneys to be raised under the National Loans Act 1939 which is attributable to any provision of the said Act of the present Session increasing the limit in section 2(1) of the Miscellaneous Financial Provisions Act 1950 on the sums which may be advanced to the Exchequer of Northern Ireland by way of loan under that section;
(c) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums so payable by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PUBLICATIONS AND DEBATES REPORTS

Mr. E. C. Redhead discharged from the Select Committee; Mr. G. H. R. Rogers added.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

Orders of the Day — BY-ELECTION, SCOTLAND (SCHOOL CHILDREN)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. I. Fraser.]

10.8 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you may recall that yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) gave the House a glimpse of the way in which elections are conducted in the Tory pocket borough of Kinross and West Perthshire. We got another taste of the way in which those elections are conducted on Friday, 6th November, in the small rural village of Madderty, in Perthshire, and that incident is the topic of this Adjournment debate. I have written to the Tory Member for that constituency and he has kindly replied.

Mr. Charles A. Howell: Who is he?

Mr. Hamilton: My hon. Friend will find out in due course. The story, briefly, is that on the morning of Friday, 1st November, the Tory candidate—a man called Home—had arranged to have an election meeting in the village hall. Unfortunately he was late for the meeting. I say unfortunately because a number of school children were kept waiting in the cold and rain for him to turn up.

Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North): Disgraceful.

Mr. Hamilton: The children were from the village school—about 40 in all. They were brought a distance of about 1½ miles to see this one candidate out of seven in the field. I should like to quote from an article that appeared not in the Daily Worker or in the Daily Herald, and not even in the Daily Mirror, but in the Scottish Daily Express of 2nd November. It is headed,
Even The Children Could Scarce Forbear to Cheer.

It says:
They had been standing there at least 20 minutes before you "—
that is, the Tory candidate—
arrived, and they were still standing there in what was pretty heavy rain…after you drove to meet the farmers in the Perth cattle market
There they were
in a silent admiring huddle…about 40 small children who had been fetched…from the village primary school, a mile and a half away".
He goes on to say that some of them were coughing, some of them were blue with cold, and makes other remarks of that kind.
I was in the constituency at the time, helping our candidate, and I wanted to know—I was desperately anxious to know—who had organised this particular exercise in modern democracy. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Scotland asking him personally to intervene. I wrote on 6th November to try to find out and I asked specific questions. The hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State replied in a lengthy letter dated 21st November—quite a long letter, two pages—but, interestingly enough, with not a single reference to the Tory candidate. There are 12 references to the Prime Minister in this letter, but not a single reference to the Tory candidate. No doubt this is an attempt to "brain wash" me.
Briefly, the story which the hon. Lady got from the Director of Education for Perthshire was this—I do not think that she will deny that this is the gist of it. A few days before the meeting, apparently some of the parents of the children asked the headmaster to release their children to go to see this man. The head told those parents that he had no authority to do that. Then, several of those parents made it clear that
they intended to take the children in any case,
and the headmaster yielded to that pressure from some of the parents. These are the words used in the hon. Lady's letter.
The headmaster thereupon consulted the Director of Education and the director consented to a 30-minutes absence on certain conditions. First, that the headmaster ensured that only those children should go to see the candidate


whose parents wished them to go. Secondly, that the parents arranged the transport of the children. Thirdly—I think that this is rich—that the children of the dissenting parents stayed at school. This was to sort out the "conformists" from the "nonconformists." Fourthly, the children must watch the candidate, but not listen to his political speech—about the only bit of sound advice that they got.
How were the parents consulted? The letter says that there was a shortage of time, in fact, there were a few days, according to the letter. But shortness of time prevented the headmaster from consulting the parents personally, but he asked the children to consult the parents. According to the letter:
All the children reported that their parents agreed.
No doubt the same result would have been obtained in the Soviet Union if the same kind of exercise had been gone through.
The parents laid on the transport and the children went to the village hall, not to sit comfortably inside the hall but to stand, miserable, wet and cold, waiting for the appearance of the "Jehovah" called Home. They waited for more than 20 minutes before he arrived. They were still waiting after his meeting, when he sped on his way to the Perth Cattle Market, and it was turned mid-day before they got back to school. That is the official version of the hon. Lady, the Under-Secretary in consultation with the Director of Education for Perthshire.
What is the version of the man who was on the spot? The man on the spot had no doubt what happened. Mr. George Gale said:
I spoke to Mrs. Willie McIntosh—she's the wife of the local branch chairman of the Unionist Party—asking her, 'Who laid this on', pointing to the children. ' Oh, we did,' she said. 'The school is a mile and a half away'. 'Whose idea was it?'—' Oh, mine and my husband's, I think. We spoke to the schoolmaster about it and I think the director of education'. 'Have you considered putting the cost of the cars down on the election expenses? '—'Oh, no. After all, he is the Prime Minister', she said.
Having got that information from the Tory organisers, he then went to the headmaster, Mr. Ian McKinnie, and in that interview with the headmaster there was no mention by the schoolmaster of

any conditions having been laid down by the Director of Education as indicated in the official letter from the Department. According to the headmaster he had just mentioned it to the director who, "did not mind". In fact, the headmaster gave the impression in the interview that it was his idea. To quote his words:
We thought it would be interesting for the children…
adding hastily, this is Mr. Gale's report—
…'I am not very keen that my name should be mentioned. We're supposed to be neutral'.
This is the local headmaster. When the Tory candidate saw the publicity that was given to this incident, he excused it on two grounds. First, he said that he knew nothing about it. I remember another Prime Minister saying that in another context—no one had told him. Secondly, he said that, anyway, a Prime Minister was an odd specimen. We all agree on that. He did not visit places like Madderty every day of the week and, therefore, the children, naturally, would want to see him. I am sure that this is indelibly inscribed on their memories. They will never forget the sight of this man coming to their village and it will probably be the last time he will ever be there.
I ask the Under-Secretary: if my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had gone as Prime Minister to that constituency, supporting a Labour candidate, and had appeared in Madderty, does the hon. Lady think that those children would have been brought along to see him? One has just to ask the question to realise the absurdity of it. In any case the candidate, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was not there as Prime Minister. He was there as the Tory candidate, one of seven in the field.
Again, I quote the article:
Now this, Sir Alec, is not a royal visit. It is not even a Prime Minister's tour. You are, up here in Perthshire, one of seven by-election candidates. It is not your fault that everywhere you go, you are followed by a vast cavalcade of reporters and photographers, of course. Nor is it your fault that people gather by the wayside to see your car speed by.
This is how he did his canvassing, at 70 miles an hour. In fact, he was shrimping for votes in Madderty and nothing else.
Of the two versions of the story I accept that of Gale and I reject the version of the Department, coming as it did from the Tory-controlled education authority. I think that the truth is that local Tory pressure was brought to bear on the headmaster. The pressures of scarcely veiled threats of social ostracism which we had fondly thought belonged to a bygone age were everywhere apparent in this by-election. Everyone who went there saw this—

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. A. Stodart): Nonsense.

Mr. Hamilton: —and, not surprisingly, none more servile than the hon. Member who this day has his reward.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will my hon. Friend accept from me the fact that one of the other candidates who stood against the Prime Minister has, for business reasons we believe, emigrated because his business has been taken away from him?

Mr. Hamilton: I am not in the slightest degree surprised at that. There are, I think, considerable pressures—economic and other kinds—brought on nonconformists to the Tory political doctrine in that constituency.
It is not surprising that the headmaster of that small school yielded to that kind of pressure. He may be a Tory supporter and it would be interesting to know whether he was a polling official on election day, because I have never seen—and in this I support what was said yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley—the electoral law flouted so openly as it was at that by-election. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was perfectly justified in what he said yesterday.
If the people of West Perthshire and Kinross want to wallow in their fuedal subservience and sickening obsequiousness, that is their doubtful privilege. Of course, the Prime Minister has lived and fed on that kind of society since he was born. Whether he chooses to continue to do that for the rest of his life is a matter for him, but, meanwhile, I suggest that he should discourage his over-enthusiastic local supporters from debasing the political coinage by stooping to

such odious methods as were used at Madderty on this occasion.
The hon. Lady the Under-Secretary said that it was all above board, all legitimate, that it was an educational visit for these children to go and see this fellow. But as the Scottish Daily Express concluded, and as I conclude:
But your supporters, Sir Alec, are very enthusiastic people and I daresay many of them haven't seen a Prime Minister before. Sometimes, driving between meetings you listened to the car radio.
I don't know if you've heard it, but immediately after we drove off from Madderty, Max By graves came on the radio to sing a song from a new show, 'It's legitimate, it's legitimate. It's as pure as the driven snow'.
It may all have been legitimate today. But, looking at the children standing in the cold rain at Madderty, as we drove away, it seemed to me, as the American wit Dorothy Parker once said,' As pure as the driven slush'.
It was, in my view, all the more reprehensible because it was all so unnecessary in a constituency like West Perthshire and Kinross. There is not a seat in the Soviet Union safer than that from the point of view of the Tory Party. The Prime Minister could have put one of his own sheep up and the Tories would have voted for that sheep. Therefore, it seems quite absurd that the Tory Party should lend itself to the suspicion that this was laid on for Tory political purposes, and the educational value of such a visit was absolutely nil.

10.24 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lady Tweedsmuir): If I may say so, I thought that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) made extremely heavy weather of a rather interesting affair because, apart from him, and, I understand, an old-age pensioner, no one has complained to the Secretary of State about the events of 1st November at Madderty, and the education authority, which fully supports the Director of Education and the headmaster, knows of no complaints whatever.
After the appearance of the article in the Scottish Daily Express the headmaster spoke to a number of parents and none of them expressed dissatisfaction at what had taken place. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the parents were very pleased indeed that their children should have


been given the opportunity of seeing the Prime Minister. Some of them expressed considerable annoyance at the terms of the article in the Daily Express. As the hon. Member has not seen fit to do so, perhaps I should briefly recount the circumstances of this case.

Mr. E. G. Willis: The noble Lady was not there.

Lady Tweedsmuir: No, I was not, but the hon. Member has raised the matter on the Adjournment and therefore it is my obligation to answer the debate.
The management and control of Madderty School rests with Perthshire Education Authority, which through the Director of Education gave prior approval to the arrangements proposed by the headmaster as, indeed, I specified, as the hon. Member said, in a rather lengthy letter of two pages. But the hon. Member asked me a rather lengthy number of questions and I thought in fairness that I should give a lengthy reply.
The children were released on the initiative of some of the parents and with the agreement of all of them. They were released specifically to see the Prime Minister, and the arrangements were intended to ensure that they were not present while the Prime Minister was giving his talk. I have to record, however, that one of the comments which I made in my letter to the hon. Member was not correct. I think that I said to him that the hall was reserved for a political speech. After further inquiries, which owing to the postponement of the Adjournment debate I had further time to make, I found that the hall was reserved only if it was raining.
Although Mr. Gale who wrote the article in the Daily Express said that all the children's noses were blue and it was raining very hard, the fact remains, as I understand, that it was not raining hard enough for the meeting to be taken in the hall itself. I understand that Mr. Gale was not accustomed to the bracing climate of Perthshire and, that being so, he did not realise that a little rain was not what we in Scotland would call rain which would make it necessary to go into a hall.
I must admit that as a result of this arrangement the children were forced

to listen to a political speech. The parents were informed that children whose patents did not want them to see the Prime Minister would remain in school under supervision until the others returned, but no parents chose to take advantage of this arrangement. The parents made their own arrangements for conveying the children to and from the village. The school work was interrupted for only about 35 minutes beyond the normal morning break. Therefore, I am driven to the conclusion that no breach of the electoral law or of the Schools (Scotland) Code occurred.
The code lays down in Regulation 10 that subject to certain arrangements in primary and secondary schools, meetings
shall each extend over a period of not less than two hours.
I should like the House to appreciate that the morning meeting of Madderty School starts at 9.30 and ends at 12.30, and as the children were absent from class only 45 minutes, including the normal morning interval of ten minutes, the requirement of two hours' secular education was fulfilled.
I should also draw the attention of the House to Regulation 1(1)(i) which defines a meeting an
a series of periods separated only by time devoted to religious instruction or to school meals or by short intervals for changes of class room, recreation or other purposes.
It is difficult to quote a precedent for the Madderty incident since the practice of letting children out for short periods to see distinguished public figures is so well established that education authorities normally expect headmasters to use their own discretion and not to seek prior approval from the Director of Education. Therefore, without examining school log books, directors would know only incidentally of such occasions.
The hon. Member for Fife, West seemed to imply that there was some kind of political indoctrination. I also happen to have read this article in the Daily Express and I perceive it was reported that the hon. Member for Fife, West said
It is political indoctrination of our school children.
Of course, one would not presume to suggest, although, in the context in which it is raised it cannot have


failed to cross one's mind, that the Labour candidate was, of course, a school master and had in fact on very many occasions been very close to the school children in question, but one would never suggest—

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Willis: Not in west Perth.

Lady Tweedsmuir: —that he was in any way responsible for indoctrination—

Miss Herbison: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Lady Tweedsmuir: No. I will not.

Miss Herbison: A shocking statement.

Lady Tweedsmuir: Because I absolutely fail to see that one could suggest that there was political indoctrination by the Prime Minister.
Furthermore, I would like to say that I understand from the public Press that the children of the Liberal candidate also had a peep at the Prime Minister. They had a peep, and they were of the opposite party and they apparently did not seem to suggest that there was any political indoctrination.

Mr. Hamilton: Did the hon. Lady ask them?

Lady Tweedsmuir: We like to show interest in a British Prime Minister, irrespective of party.

Mr. William Hannan: On a point of order. My hon. Friend, on the Adjournment, was directing attention to a public authority for which the hon. Lady has some responsibility. Is it in order in reply to that debate to depart from the charge which is made against the Department and resort to an argument which is a personal inference that one of the candidates in this election was, because of his position as a teacher—

Miss Herbison: A shocking inference.

Mr. Hannan: —abusing it? Is it in order for a Minister in reply to an Adjournment debate to raise personal inferences of that kind?

Mr. Speaker: It is subject to the rules of order which govern our debates on the Adjournment.

Lady Tweedsmuir: I was very careful to say that we would certainly not suggest that the Labour candidate, because he was a school master, was responsible—

Mr. George Lawson: Will the hon. Lady tell us what she is suggesting?

Lady Tweedsmuir: I was refuting the suggestion that there was any political indoctrination. I would suggest to the House that the interest in a British Prime Minister is such that it is irrespective of political party. The Unionist candidate as such could not escape from being the Prime Minister. In fact the Prime Minister himself said:
The Prime Minister is an odd specimen. I suppose they like to come and look.
Therefore, the parents, it is not surprising, wished that their children should not be excluded from this historic event in their own countryside.
We have had six Scottish Prime Ministers since the century began, and only three have held or represented constituencies in Scotland, and the Prime Minister is in fact the fourth. I would suggest that this particular campaign was in many ways not unlike those of those candidates who have been Prime Ministers or who had hoped to be Prime Ministers. In particular I refer hon. Gentlemen to the famous Midlothian campaign of Mr. Gladstone. It will not be forgotten—and here I quote Bigham's Prime Ministers of Britain—that
He unfolded to vast Scottish audiences, which hung upon his words, the principles which, as he conceived, should govern the policy of this country.

Mr. Willis: The children, too?

Lady Tweedsmuir: He made a succession of declamations which had an immense effect on the country as a whole.
Therefore, I would suggest to hon. Members that maybe with the present Prime Minister, a British Prime Minister, the parents of Perth and Kinross sense a greatness that in time they will not deny.

10.35 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: The noble Lady the Under-secretary has treated this matter in a most disgraceful manner.

Mr. Lawson: In a facetious manner.

Miss Herbison: Yes, in a facetious manner.
The noble Lady started by treating the House as if this were of no importance whatever. She tried to say that there had been no breach of the Schools (Scotland) Code. We are not interested in whether this is a breach of that code or not. What we are interested in is the fact that children were taken along to hear one candidate of seven and that they heard that candidate. If the noble Lady does not think that is a disgraceful thing in a democratic country, she should not at any time in the future criticise, as we criticise, the kind of elections that they have in the Soviet Union and other places.
I have never heard from the Dispatch Box anything so disgraceful as the noble Lady's implication against the teacher who was standing as a candidate. Later, she said that she was not implying anything. The very fact that she mentioned that he was a teacher was a vile implication against his integrity as a teacher. I myself taught for many years before I became a Member of Parliament. At no time did I or any of my Socialist friends ever take advantage of our being teachers to indoctrinate our children in any way politically.
I now resume my seat so as to give the noble Lady half a minute to withdraw, in decency, the implication that she has made against a man who cannot himself stand up here and ask her to withdraw it.

Lady Tweedsmuir: I am delighted that the hon. Lady has left me half a minute

in which to reply to the article which was the subject of this debate, in which it is clearly stated that the hon. Member for Fife, West—[Hon. MemBers: "Answer the debate!"]—said:
It is political indoctrination of our children.
I would say from everything that I have recorded in this debate that in no case—

Mr. W. Hamilton: Answer the charge.

Miss Herbison: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I gave way, leaving the noble Lady half a minute for one specific purpose. I was only giving way. The noble Lady, again in a very wrong way, has used my giving way for some other purpose.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Hamilton: Will the noble Lady take this opportunity to withdraw the accusation she made against the Labour candidate in the constituency?

Lady Tweedsmuir: Mr. Speaker, I understood that you were about to rule on the point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I cannot do anything at all now. I confess that I did not understand that the hon. Lady was giving way. I thought that she had finished.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-two minutes to Eleven o'clock